


Tidal (Being a Ballad of Avon and Cally)

by 12thofNever



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Angst and Humor, Bisexual Male Character, Dream Sex (non-explicit), Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Multi, Spoilers for all of Series 3 and beyond, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2018-09-07 07:00:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 67,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8788129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/12thofNever/pseuds/12thofNever
Summary: After the events of "Rumours of Death." It begins with Cally trying to convince a sleepless Avon to take a bath to help him relax. (Alone.) When it becomes far from relaxing, there needs to be certain conversations.And what strange and possibly sinister force is intertwining the dreams of the crew—and how does it all relate to a song?All roads will eventually lead to "Terminal"— then to Gauda Prime (with a twist).(This story occurs "between-the-scenes" of the show's continuity.)





	1. The Statue

    When he ignored her first knock, she sent the irritated telepathic message: *I am just going to keep talking in your head until you open this _damned door_.*  
    There was at first a moment of resentful silence before the cabin door finally slid open.  
    "Please don't talk in my head," muttered Avon miserably.  
    With vehemence, Cally thrust out her offering. "It's for a bath. You really should take one. You'll feel better."  
    The alarmingly scruffy Avon stared at the pretty jar that Cally was presenting to him, which was filled with a peculiar powdery substance. In typical Cally-fashion, she stood there in the doorway, staring him down in a challenge until he finally made his decision. He gave a small sigh of irritation and yanked the proffered item out of her hand.  
    Cally lifted a skeptical eyebrow. "Shall I come in and draw you a bath then?"  
    "I think I can manage that myself," he said wearily.  
    "Are you sure?" she asked.  
    Obstinate brown eyes met exhausted brown eyes. He finally glared at her. "Yes. I'm sure."  
    Cally shrugged. "I'll leave you to it then." She turned to go, while adding: "It'll be soothing."  
    "What if I don't wish to be... _soothed_?" he muttered.  
    "It will help you relax enough to finally get some sleep. Trust me."  
    " _Trust_ you," murmured Avon. " 'Trust'. A word I would choose never to hear again."  
    He barked out a small, rueful and somewhat frightening laugh and closed the door on her concerned face.  
  
    He was right: trust was probably not what anyone should ever ask of him again and expect to be taken seriously.  
    Cally admonished herself for her tactlessness.  It was doubtful Avon would even trust her jar of herbal bath ingredients. She had not seen him for the _Liberator_ -equivalent of two days which had made her decide to investigate his state of mind herself. Of all the crew members, she was the only one who knew of what lay under his fastidious psyche: there was that violent ocean churning beneath the glass-smooth surface, and she had felt it rise to dangerous flood levels ever since his return from Earth, "Bartholomew", and Anna Grant dead in his arms. Someone needed to interrupt his unstable solitude.  
    Of course, she had used the bath herbs merely as an excuse to observe him and assess his health. She realized he was grieving but was also not certain how a grieving Avon would ultimately manifest itself: would he be belligerent? Despondent? His typical impassive self, but in need of a shave?  Being telepathic, she knew a few of his secrets which she felt wiser to keep to herself; yet she felt guilty because it gave her an odd sense of power over him.    
    Being empathic as well, she could feel the turbulent tides awakening in him. It was time for her to step in and offer assistance, whether he wanted it or not.     
    When he had finally opened the door after she had threatened a mental barrage, he was not wearing the venomous look she had expected and for which she had actually hoped. That would have been an Avon she understood, a healthy Avon. Annoyance at her would have been acceptable, not the empty look of defeat with which he had greeted her. His deeply shadowed eyes had likely not been closed in sleep for several days. He had stood there in the doorway, barefoot, looking unfinished in his loose black tunic, his red leather trousers and several days worth of uncharacteristic stubble. His eyes had barely focused on her at all, instead drifted to the floor as if they were too heavy to lift. By the look of him he hadn't even cried, and she knew tears were a necessary therapeutic response in most humans after traumatic experiences. However, Kerr Avon was ... different.  
    No, best to use force to deal with him in this state. And bath salts.  
    Just to have the last words against the door closed in her face, she telepathically explained to him the use of the the jar of ingredients and warned him that she would be checking in on him soon. She regretted invading his mental privacy again like this, but having finally seen him face-to-face, she had once more felt the boiling, threatening waters beneath the surface. He needed something lunar to guide and calm these tides. Ideally, this should come from within himself, but there was a possibility that he just might need some assistance.  
    It was something for which she knew he would never ask. So she planned on becoming a nuisance for the benefit of his recovery.  
      
    "Zen, fill the bath for me. I'm apparently supposed to get some sort of psychic relief from a potion of ground-up twigs and leaves. Perhaps if I'm lucky it'll just end up dissolving me instead."  
    Zen's deep mechanical voice filled his chamber from a nearby speaker in the wall, softer than the booming tone it took on the flight deck. +Confirmed. Commencing filling of bath basin.+ Water gushed from the faucet and Avon realized he could have done this manually but perhaps he had just needed the cold logical voice of Zen to block out his own intrusive thoughts.     
    Zen continued: +Information. After analysis of Cally's specimens, the conclusion is that dissolution is impossible with ordinary H2O with this mixture. It is inadvisable to add other liquid chemicals in order to cause this dangerous solvent outcome.+  
    "Zen, I was being facetious. I do not actually want to physically dissolve my body. I realize that you are literal."  
    +Confirmed. Do you wish the basin to continue to be filled with H2O?+  
    Avon sighed. "Yes, just ordinary water. I'll add the extras."  
    The extras, in this case, comprised of a concoction of alien sea salt and Terran lavender oil (where the hell had Cally found this?) as well as some non-Terran herbs that were mostly fragrant and harmless. He guessed they smelled of things not grown under domes, but rather in open air under skies of many colors. He began to throw handfuls of these ingredients into the tub as it filled, feeling like some sort of ancient alchemist. Since the potion had come from Cally, he half-expected it to explode into a theatrical, glittering purple cloud.  
    "Why am I doing this again?" he muttered to himself.  
    He glanced to the glass of Beta Gamman wine he had been drinking in the false hope of lulling himself into a more careless state, then decided to add that to the bathwater as well. It was something Vila would do, he thought with mild disgust. Vila would have luxuriated in a tub filled entirely of green Soma if given the opportunity.  
    After he had dumped the wine into the water, he stripped down so that final ingredient to the elixir was himself. Climbing in, he slid down into the tub with a prolonged sigh. While the texture and floral perfume of the water was indeed relaxing, he was disappointed that his alchemy did not transform him into gold or smoke within his cauldron. No, he resolutely remained weary, aching, despairing Kerr Avon who had just killed the lover he had already thought was dead. No simple bath would ever assuage that hole in whatever was left of his hypothetical soul.  
    In the aftermath of that fateful encounter, he had retreated to his cabin and the rest of the crew had kept their distance. (All but Cally. Exasperating, concerned Cally.) He did not want to see another human face and least of all his own. Battered and ill in spirit, he would indeed welcome melting himself into nothingness right there in the water. Steam and the heady scents of salt and lavender and wine now had the power to lure him finally into sleep, at long last. Only it was here in his unconscious world that a transformation actually did occur as he found himself looking with horror into Servalan's wide, beautiful and amused eyes.  
  
    He could not move, could not speak. And she caressed his face. "Oh, it's happening so nicely," she purred. "You'll make a lovely statue. I always thought you would turn to stone but now it seems it's really happening."  
    He tested her words. His arms felt heavier and he could not look away from her smiling face. "Don't worry," Servalan said, "We have a special place planned to display you, where you can stand and watch forever and not be able to interfere ever again." She rubbed her hands over his numbing chest and then nuzzled his chin. Enraged and panicking, he became aware he was losing feeling throughout the rest of his body.  
    Servalan was wearing an elaborate silken gown that seemed to be spun from obsidian cobwebs. Silver and black meshed together, wrapping about her lithe form as she folded herself against his rigid body. "Again, I would have preferred a corpse, but this will be so much more decorative."  
     _What the hell was happening?_  
    His furious eyes implored her and she beamed at his helplessness. "Ah, your eyes. Still alive and brown and so much like a trapped animal's. This is highly entertaining." She lifted her perfect lips to kiss him and they lingered on his frozen mouth, testing. "You've done this to yourself. We've only helped a little. We knew your eyes would still work, of course, because they would need to see what you cannot prevent. They need to stay open for one other person and it's a pity we still cannot find this individual so he can see what you've become." She stroked his stiffened face.  "We've caught his shadow and we're certain someday he'll want it back. He'll come looking for it... for _you_."  
    He wanted to snarl, but his mouth had been sealed over. She snapped her fingers at her nearby attendants, all mutoids. "Carry him to the pedestal and pose him prettily before he hardens up completely. We want him looking as decorative as possible in his new home."  
    He could barely feel being lifted by the mutoids as they pulled his stiffening body onto a low, elegant platform and began to adjust his arms at his sides as if he were a doll. They held him in place as he seemed to adhere to the pedestal. An admiring Servalan then walked into his line of sight. "Yes, yes, quite handsome. Now, Avon, look at what you'll be seeing forever." She waved a graceful arm at a desolate landscape under rolling bloody clouds which were punctuated with occasional saffron lightning strikes. There were distant explosions, the staccato sounds of plasma-blasters; hoarse, distant yells and screams. Ships fell from the sky and crashed into flowery fireballs.  
    Servalan spread her arms. "What do you think? Quite a spectacular show, is it not? And just think-- you're its captive audience." She stepped up onto his pedestal and put her mouth to his stone lips one last time; he could not feel this at all, having by now become a complete statue. Only his eyes remained alive, flashing with hatred and terror.  
    "You'll be here whenever I need you, Avon, won't you?"  
     Laughing, she caressed him with another sweep of her elegant fingers.  
    She extended her arms like wings and her attendants helped her down to the desolate earth once more. "Enjoy the view," she said cheerily and then left him to his fate. She strode off as if exiting an elegant banquet hall. A dank fog now consumed the place she and her mutoids had only just occupied.  
    Tendrils of smoke cleared before his view and he began to see bodies there on the plain before him. And worse, he began to recognize them.  
     Vila, Dayna, Tarrant... Cally.  
     _Anna._  
    How had it come to this? This would be his existence now: echoes of carnage, battles, _death_. He could not even move to run away, frozen in this scenario forever.  
    Become stone then, he decided. Just shut down like one of your machines, that was all. He closed his eyes against the tumult.    
    Just let it happen. This means nothing to you. Nothing.  
    Then.  
    And then, a beloved voice.  
    "Avon," it said, "I've found you."  
     _A man had once lost his shadow,_ Servalan had told him. _He would want it back someday._  
    Replacing where Servalan had stood was a new apparition. Slowly, rising into the view of his still-human eyes was a a bulky familiar form barricaded in a heavy, worn cloak. There was a curly brown mane and a bearded face wearing a weary grin. Though tired, the face was also relieved, triumphant and just a little bit desperate. Avon had never thought to see it again.  
    The man's big hands grasped onto the statue's arms as he proclaimed, "Here you are. I've come for you, Avon."  
    Blake.  
    He could not form the name on his stone lips. He knew he was finally weeping even though he could not feel the tears on his own cheeks. He wanted to blurt out what he had done to Anna, wanting Blake's absolution, but he remained mute, his mouth closed beneath marble. But then, incredibly like in a child's fairy tale, Blake broke the cruel spell and reversed the transformation with a kiss. He pressed his lips to those of the statue, and there was a deep rushing warmth throughout Avon, melting him into flesh again. Blake caught him as he folded forward, pliable and naked, into his arms.  
    Blake looked haggard and weather-beaten. He had been through all the battles that still sounded off in the grotesque distance. For some reason he did not seem to see the bodies of former friends sprawled on the ground nearby. Surely he must have had to walk over them to get to the statue Avon had become. Blake swept off his tattered coat and pulled it around the other man's shivering shoulders. "Come on, Avon," he told him. "I know a place where we can go that's safe. We'll go together. It is hidden from all this and it is imperative that you must follow where I lead."  
    Avon fell to his knees, winding Blake's cloak tighter about himself. He rasped, "Let me rest. I-I'm weary. I'm cold."  
    "We must go NOW," Blake insisted and without waiting, he turned, leaving Avon huddled in his coat on the scorched and bloody ground. Blake's strides away from him were long and determined.  
     _The shadow was still not able to join again with the man._  
    "Blake!" Avon cried. "Please. Stand still."  
    For a moment he did just that. Then Blake turned with a slow, strange smile.  
    Avon pleaded hoarsely, "I can't do this. I'm not YOU. I can't _be_ like you. Please don't leave me again."  
    For a moment, Blake just held him with that look of inscrutable amusement. Then he was gone, loping back into the desolation, leaving Avon curled upon himself. Raw sobs ripped from Avon's chest and molten tears coursed down a face that had only recently been stone. Anna was still dead. All of his companions-- the charges he had never wanted-- were dead. "Please," he groaned to nothing, to everything, "I cannot bear this. Someone. Someone. Someone. Please listen to me."  
      
    And then someone did.  
    *I'm listening, Avon.* A feminine voice, gentle, probing, coming from the air-- no, from inside his own head.  
      
    *Avon, are you all right? AVON!*  
  
    He awoke with a jolt and a startled splash. He looked about himself in wild confusion, working to place where he was, who he was, his physical and mental state. He put hands to his chest, feeling wet flesh and not stone. His breathing became urgent and tidal.  
     "Bath. _Liberator_." He checked off everything he was aware of in this moment. "Telepathy. Cally."  
     _Cally._  
    *Avon, I heard you. Are you all right?*  
    He leaned his head back against the wall of the bath, gritting his teeth in anger at the emotional broadcast that had no doubt summoned the empathic Auron. Only human himself and not telepathic, he could not answer affirmative to her solicitous inquiry. And he wasn't certain if he would be correct.  
    *Avon, there was a burst of fear from in there and I heard you cry out. What has--*  
    In an attempt to block Cally's mental intrusion and drown out her concern, he sank down beneath the water. He held his breath, counted, until he felt able to calm himself. Yet how strangely preferable it was for Cally to be the one to hear such weakness coming from him.  
    To his relief, she did not continue her telepathic messaging and he came up for air, gasping. Then he sighed.  
    "Zen, inform Cally that I am perfectly fine. I was only having a troubled sleep. And please inform her I never wish to have those ingredients in my bath ever again."  
    +Confirmed. Relaying message.+  
    He slid out of the tub and wrapped himself in a towel to dry off. The uncomfortable scents of lavender, salt and wine still clung to him as he made a methodical arrangement of the garments he wished to wear: black and silver tunic and trousers, black boots. Ebony was certainly becoming his uniform of choice now. He laid them out crisply on the bed, where they waited for him to fill them.  
    Instead, he sat naked on the bed, letting the towel drop away to the floor. He slumped a bit, bathwater dripping from his hair, down his face, into his lashes. He knew this new despondent behavior of his was unacceptable. He needed to strengthen himself-- yes, turn himself to stone.  
    But he was still very exhausted and still very naked. He rolled over onto his side and drifted into a much drier sleep, even as he heard the return of a soft voice: *Avon, I'm still here. Remember that I'm still here.*  
    There was another voice, softer, fading: "I let you go."  
    And then a deeper one: "I have always trusted you. From the very beginning."  
    Dream-Anna and Dream-Blake dissolved as Cally remained, easing again into his agitated unconscious: *Rest. Just rest. Come to me if you need me. We don't need to be alone, the two of us.*  
     "Oh, I am alone," Avon murmured as he faded into sleep. "It's what I deserve."


	2. The Troubadour

    Waking after a thankfully dreamless slumber, Avon arrayed himself in the day's chosen clothing which had previously been on the bed beside him as he slept. Now that he was finally able to look into a mirror again, he adjusted the perfection of the black garments, then inspected the precision of his posture. After observing his freshly shaven face, he lifted his chin and inhaled the last remnants of Cally's herbal concoction. He cast a wary eye to the now-empty jar she had given him.  
    Maybe he really shouldn't have mixed the wine in with it.  
    But perhaps there had been some sort of truth to the dream after all: he would now need to become something akin to a mobile statue, even more marble and more dispassionate.  
    He finally stepped into the corridor for the first time in days.  
    He suddenly froze as he heard the unexpected sound of music lacing itself through the hallways of the ship, accompanied by eerie, familiar words sung in a female voice:       
     _"A man's lost his shadow-- he will want it back."_  
    Startled, he strode with militant urgency in the direction of the flight deck, from where the unsettling melody seemed to be issuing. It was not recorded or computerized music that he was hearing, but rather organic, fluid strains, played on a physical stringed instrument. The instrument in question was a sort of lyre, held in the lap of the youngest crew member, Dayna Mellanby. She strummed it with gentle precision, her voice as dulcet as it was haunting him.    
    And with her was the unexpected solitary audience of Vila Restal.  
    Dayna was singing what was probably her own composition, and Avon realized the words must have wound a subliminal thread into his dreams the previous evening. The sound of her practicing down the corridor must have carried through his walls and into his bath and fitful sleep. That was the only rational explanation he had for the lyrics fitting into Servalan's nightmare taunt.  
    Though he had heard Dayna sing before, Avon found himself riveted. He stood in a temporary hidden silence and listened to the peculiar song which also seemed to be mesmerizing Vila as well.  
  
     _A man's lost his shadow-- he will want it back_  
   _To put right all his wrongs and all that he lacks._  
     _The moon pulls its mask over the face of the sea_  
             _We are tidal-- you and me._  
  
     _A woman's gained a shadow--_  
     _She'll want to give it back_  
     _To the dark side of the moon_  
     _Because the sea has gone black._  
     _Is this the way that we were meant to be?_  
             _We are tidal-- you and me._  
  
    The voice that accompanied the strummed electronic harp had a sensitive beauty Avon would never have expected to hear in the bold, sometimes arrogant young woman. Hearing it, it was easy to forget that this was the same Dayna who devised weaponry, Dayna who harbored deadly vengeance, Dayna who was more than comfortable with destruction. But this too was Dayna: wistful, dreaming and romantic, her slender, adroit fingers strumming silver strings and creating beauty. Even someone as apathetic as himself could hear this.  
    He thought back to the day Dayna had saved his life, taken his unconscious self to safety, kissed him awake "out of curiosity" and called him beautiful. Perhaps Dayna's vigorous breath of life had awakened something more needy in him on that day-- after all, he had transferred that same energy to Servalan's treacherous lips not long afterwards.  
    Perhaps he too had just been "curious".  
    And he remembered his dream in which Blake had freed him from his stone imprisonment with a kiss. He absently touched his own lips, remembering that ethereal sensation.  
     Sitting at the opposite end of the flight deck lounge with rapt attention was Vila Restal. He had not yet realized Avon had entered the room and Avon was fascinated by what he saw: Vila was watching Dayna play with quiet, intelligent interest and most shocking of all, a look of deep respect.  
    It was only then that the small man became aware of the shadow in the room and abruptly pulled on the mask of the fool again.  
    Avon had always suspected that Vila's clownish cowardice was an act, and he willingly played along with it. He himself wore a mask of impassive arrogance, after all. With smugness, he enjoyed having been a witness to Vila's subterfuge. Yes, as much as he called the other man an idiot, he and Vila shared the need for self-preserving disguises. They understood one another.  
    "Look who's returned from the dead," proclaimed Vila.  
    Dayna, at first startled by another presence, flashed a huge relieved grin. "Well hello, Avon! Glad to have you back!"  
    "And here we'd hoped that you'd decided to live permanently in your cabin. Pity," Vila yawned. Dayna glared at him and he shrugged. "What? I was just saying what everyone else was thinking."  
    "Ignore him," Dayna said.  
    "That continues to be a daily goal of mine," Avon proclaimed. He then offered her a rare smile as he stepped with casual elegance from the hexagonal doorway. "Quite the troubadour you've become. Does this new composition have a name?"  
    "It does have a theme," she smiled with uncharacteristic shyness. "It's a ballad."  
    Vila cupped his chin in his hand. "It's a _lurrrrrrve_ story." Dayna once more flung a threatening look at him. He spread his hands in a gesture of feigned innocence.  
    "Vila was just getting a preview. It's a work in progress," she explained. "I wrote it because I find myself missing the Sarran sea. I'm hoping the melody sounds a bit like the ebb and flow of waves and I call it 'Tidal' for now."  
    Sarran: where Dayna had grown up and where Servalan had killed her father. It was obvious that there was more to the song than just nostalgia for the sea.  
    "Ah." Avon glanced dismissively aside, pretending to have no interest. "I thought I would find Cally here with you. She's been quite fond of your music."  
    He could have asked where Tarrant was as well, but actually he couldn't care less.      
    Dayna was not offended by his feigned lack of interest in her music. "Cally's been spending some time on her own. I saw her last on the observatory, sitting quietly, probably meditating, I think. She hasn't really been joining the rest of us down here as of late. I assume she's been in her cabin most of the time."  
    Avon turned his head with a quick glare."How long has _this_ been going on?" he snapped.  
    Dayna and Vila exchanged a look at his sudden sharp tone.  
    "Oh, like you actually _care?"_ Vila said with exasperation. "Weeks now. Haven't you noticed? A little thing like her people's genocide probably dampened her spirits a bit."  
    Dayna flung her electronic tuning fork at him.  
    "Ow! Dayna!" He rubbed the arm that had been hit, then muttered a bit sheepishly, "Oh, that's right, Avon. You were a little occupied then."  
    Avon flashed dark eyes at him. "Yes, waiting to be tortured by Shrinker took up a lot of my valuable time. How rude of me not to be paying attention to a moody Auron."  
    "Avon! That's uncalled for. She's lost her people!" Dayna snapped back.  
    She and Vila both became outraged on Cally's behalf, protesting in angry unison until Avon turned his back to them.  
    "Of all people, you should understand," Vila finally scoffed.  
    Avon spun on him. "Oh, why is that? Do explain."  
    Vila flinched. "Circumstances...?"  
    Dayna put her harp aside and folded her arms in fury. "You're not the only one on board this ship to have experienced loss, or don't you recall?" She yanked the tuning fork back out of Vila's proffered hand. She brandished it like a weapon and Vila carefully moved out of its emphatic range. "I try to work through my grief, keep myself busy. And Vila... well, Vila drinks."  
    "Which reminds me: I need a drink." Vila got up.  
     "Like you, she's only wanted solitude. You two should actually consider becoming partners in solitude. You both do solitude so well."  
    Avon bared his teeth. "I don't work well as a partner."  
    "Yeah, we've noticed," Vila mumbled, pouring himself some emerald Soma.  
    Dayna stood up then and walked over to Avon, taking the risk of physical contact by touching his arm and leading him out of Vila's earshot. "I am truly sorry for you, Avon, and I am glad you're... well, _yourself_ again. But I worry about Cally too. Her behavior has been erratic and I don't know how to console her. We're friends, yes, but you two are... well, more _similar_ to each other."  
    Wary, Avon waited for her to finish.  
    "I know what it's like to brutally lose family. Like Cally, I've also lost my sister." She said this in a very soft voice and Avon could not help wincing as he also remembered her adopted sister Lauren tied to a post, beaten and bloody on the planet Sarran. Then there was the memory of Dayna weeping over her murdered father, a man he had respected.  
    He sighed despite himself.  
    Dayna did not fail to notice his discomfort when she spoke about her own pain. She scowled at him. "I see you _do_ understand."    
    The part of him that was turning to stone wanted no part of others' inner dramas. He was not like Blake who had sometimes actually managed to care for other people's feelings-- that was, when he wasn't almost killing them with his calamitous, moronic schemes.  
    He remembered Dream-Blake deserting him, leaving him cold, naked and alone.  
     _Blake! Please. Stand still._  
    He turned away. "As for my own... troubles, I will persevere and move on towards more pressing concerns."  
    Dayna shrugged. "Of course you will. You always land on your feet like a cat. Someday you'll leave the memory of all this, all of _us_ , behind without a second thought." She frowned. "But Cally can't shut down that fast, like a machine, like YOU." Her dark eyes were sharp and accusing.    
    He was not fazed. "How unfortunate for her."  
    "You lost Anna--"  
    "I _killed_ Anna." He ground his teeth.  
    "Yes. But you lost her long before that happened. Cally has lost her entire PEOPLE. I think she's won the grief prize and it may take her quite awhile to recover. And she won't look to any of us to help her with that. She's stubborn that way too."  
    Avon said nothing.  
    "And yet..." Dayna sighed. "She still manages to be concerned for _your_ emotional state on top of all this. Why the hell does she even bother?"  
    "I don't know why, either. She need not concern herself with my welfare at all. I have always managed to take care of myself quite well."  
    "Yes, we've noticed," Dayna muttered. "You certainly DO take care of only yourself. " She sighed as she walked back to the couch, sat down with resignation and pulled her harp back into her lap. She adjusted a tuning peg, tightened a string. Vila, who was on his second glass of Soma, sat down again beside her.  
    "Avon, just be aware she's suffering. I tried to talk to her myself but... you two have more of a bond than she and I have. You've been through more together." Dayna turned to include Vila in this discussion. "You've lost friends."  
    Vila sighed then. "And she won't listen to me, Avon. And yes, before you can confirm it, it's because I'm a fool." He waited. "Oh come on, I left that wide open for you."  
    Avon had in fact been ready to comment to the affirmative but caught the compassionate look Dayna gave the small man, and the strange novelty of this managed to still his acid tongue. Dayna had somehow grown less antagonistic to the thief as of late. What had changed here between the two of them?  
    He turned away. "I am not in the position to coddle anyone. How one relates to loss and tragedy is a personal matter that needs swift resolution in order to persist in this miserable existence."  
    "Ah! Spoken like a true optimist!" saluted Vila, lifting his glass. "I need someone to embroider that on a pillow for me."  
    They both ignored him.  
    "Yes, of course, Avon," Dayna said, sounding too weary for her years. "Whatever you say."  
    He looked at her steadily for a moment, then sighed again.  
    "Perhaps... _perhaps_ I will have a word with Cally."  
    "She likes more than one word, actually. I hear she likes whole sentences," Vila offered.  
    "Shut up, Vila," Avon and Dayna said in unison.  
    At his moment, there was a new  voice from elsewhere in the room, deep and cheery. "Ah! Avon! What have I missed?" Del Tarrant emerged from the doorway and swung his lanky body down beside Dayna, grinning. He looked from face to face and saw the sour looks all around.  
    "Ah. I see. Don't mind me." He waved a dramatic hand for them to continue.  
    "Tarrant, you don't happen to embroider, do you?" Vila asked.  
     Avon, meanwhile, had already left the room.  
    "I don't get it," Tarrant said. "Is it me? Or is it that my hair is just too curly or something for him?"  
    Vila rolled his eyes. "No, it's just that you're not the right one with the curly hair."  
    Now Tarrant and Dayna gave him confused looks.  
    Vila muttered, "Lost friends indeed." He drained his glass.  
  
    "Avon, are you all right?"  
     He stood in her door frame."You keep asking me that."  
    "Well, you never answer me."  
    He and Cally stood there staring at one another.  
    "May I come in?" asked Avon delicately. 


	3. The Moon Disc

    Cally stepped aside with a wave of her hand and let him enter.  
    Avon stood with hands clasped before him in dignified courtesy as she watched him process the interior of her room with his usual analytical thoroughness. She knew he had never seen the inside of it, and certainly not since her occupation of it. In deliberate contrast to her days as the sole survivor of a guerilla resistance on Saurian Major, when she had taken refuge in stark makeshift camps and often slept on hard alien soil, she had tried to soften this spartan chamber, make it the warm, comfortable sanctuary her rebel camps had decidedly not been. When she had agreed to take on responsibilities in the _Liberator's_ medical unit, she had also discovered a more nurturing, metaphysical side to herself as well. Once thinking of herself as hotheaded and disaffected, she now found she was much more like her studious, peaceful clone-sister Zelda.  
    Of course, now Zelda and her people, the Auronar, were lost to her forever.  
    The walls of her cabin were decorated with her own drawings, and she could see Avon looking from picture to picture with impassive assessment. All from memory, they were mostly landscapes and visual records of her travels. She knew how Avon must see them: idealized, romantic viewpoints featuring forests, moonscapes, fortresses, oceans. A green, lush canyon; a starlit waterfall; a rose-colored ocean; the triple-mooned sky of Ceti Five at sunset. Probably too sentimental for his liking. Unlike Dayna with her music, this modest, artistic side of herself never left the small temple of this cabin. She did not expect praise for the art and so was not disappointed when he offered her none.  
    However, he did step further into the room to peruse the drawings in closer detail. She sensed by his long silence that a private conversation was forthcoming between the two of them and she allowed the door to close.  
    Finally, Avon seemed to have had his fill of her gallery and now turned his head to the small box of sand on her desk where the Moon Disc resided. He walked over to it, tilting his head with clinical interest. "Ah. You still have your pet, I see."  
    "Not a pet. A sentient lifeform, also separated from her species. The Moon Disc and I have much in common."  
    "How are you keeping it alive?"  
    Cally shrugged. "She just wants to stay alive, I suppose. Just like all of us."  
    "Ah. Good answer."  
    He was quiet once more as he continued to survey the creature. Finally, Cally smiled and gave him a nod of encouragement. "It's all right. You can pet her."  
    "Must I?"  
     She rolled her eyes. His diffidence wasn't fooling her. She knew he wanted to touch it out of scientific curiosity, and he looked both eager and uncomfortable by the prospect.  
    "Oh, for crying out loud," she said.    
    Catching him off-guard, Cally reached for his extended hand and guided it toward the creature. She too felt it begin to vibrate under his tentative fingers.  
    "She _likes_ you!" Cally grinned with surprised delight. "I would never have anticipated that."  
    "Neither would I," Avon muttered, looking uneasy. "How do you know it's a ... _'she'?"_  
    Cally shrugged. "I don't. For all I know Moon Discs are hermaphrodites. But I can't call her an 'it', like you call Orac and Zen, for instance. I know they're machines, but they _do_ have masculine voices. And actual personalities."  
    "And while you assign them anthropomorphic traits like gender, I am not quite so sentiment-- _oh!"_ He yanked his hand away, startled.  
    Cally grinned, delighted. "You heard her, didn't you? She tried to talk to you!"  
    "I..." Avon was astounded. "I heard a voice but... " He took a step backwards from the sandbox, despite himself. "There were no words I could understand."  
    "My hand was on yours and it must have helped to amplify her thoughts to you. It's because your surface mind is quite calm and orderly, and she sensed you might be receptive for communication even for a non-telepath." She paused a moment, listening. "She's pleased with the experiment. But she finds you more of an empath, however. Oh, this is quite remarkable. Avon, I think you've got some actual latent psychic ability in there."  
    Avon frowned. "I'm _empathic_ \--?"  
    Cally sighed, shrugging. "Yes, I know-- farfetched, isn't it? I still don't know the full extent of Moon Discs' telepathic powers. You remember that they also exhibited telekinesis, moving objects by pure thought. I wonder what else they're capable of?" She gently put the creature back into the sand. "Or rather, what _she's_ capable of--she being the only one left of her kind that we now know of."  
    She felt the cool intensity of Avon studying her. She turned away from his scrutiny and began to pace a bit, rubbing her hands together in nervous contemplation.  
     "I know they look like rather simple organisms to you but I know there is much more about them... well, just _her_ ... that even my own telepathy cannot penetrate." She faced him with a mischievous grin that she hoped would deflect his attention from her poorly concealed melancholy. "She does find _you_ especially fascinating."    
    But then she quickly sobered, biting her lip. Should she continue?  
    "But she's picked up on the same troubling thing."  
    He waited, cautious. "Which is?"  
    "She sensed what I already know: your inner self-- your _sea_ , if you like--is decidedly not as calm as you would like us all to think." She looked away, grimacing. "There's a lot of... tectonic disturbance."  
    The mask that was his face grew colder. "So I have an inner sea. How watery and poetic. Have you been listening to Dayna's music too, perchance?"  
    This comment confused her. "It's the best analogy I can come up with to describe your psyche." She saw him wince. "I'm sorry, I'm making you uncomfortable."  
    "Hardly. As intriguing as this all is, I actually didn't come in here to be psychoanalyzed and compared to water."  
    "Oh?" She faced him. "Then why are you here then?"  
    "I'm here to inquire about _you_."  
    Cally lifted the Moon Disc again and put it into the palm of her hand, stoking it absently. Its purr was noiseless but it spoke mental reassurances to her. She said, "You're concerned for my emotional welfare? I find that hard to believe, even if _she_ thinks you're empathic. I think the others sent you up here to check on me."  
    "Yes," he admitted. "And I... also felt the need to check on you."  
    She lifted an eyebrow. "Is that so? Well, if you must know, I _am_ coping. There's a great absence that I need to adjust to now. An emptiness where there once was... my entire race. You wouldn't understand, not being a telepath." She let the Moon Disc slide down into its box again. It slithered a few more inches across the sand and settled into it like a smooth, legless crab. It listened.  
    Avon fixed his gaze past her to some of the drawings on the wall. "You did just say I may have some latent empathic ability. For instance, I do understand emptiness."  
    Cally looked up at him, her brows furrowed. This was a startling admission for Avon. "You're also giving off the illusion that you're already emotionally healed, as I thought you would."  
    "What makes you think my 'injury' was that serious to begin with?" His tone was flat.  
    She gave him a hard stare until he finally looked away from her with one of his perverse, careless grins.    
    "You're not fooling me, Avon. You're not fooling _any_ of us." She reached forward, put a delicate hand on his chest. "Right here. You were nearly blasted in the chest by a woman you thought was dead. But she still managed to leave a gaping hole in you anyway."  
    Cally's hand lingered there at the center of his breast. He said very quietly, "Well, then it was fortunate that you saved my life by calling out my name both vocally and mentally to warn me that she had reached for her gun."  
    She had forgotten that. Anna had almost killed him, and Cally's cry had alerted Avon's quick reflexes. Murderous Anna was then shot by her former lover and Cally had watched another kind of death take place in Avon's face.  
    "Yes," Cally murmured and let her hand fall away.  
    But Avon suddenly caught it and held it so gently she found herself gasping in surprise.  
    "I haven't yet thanked you for that," he said in a soft voice as she tentatively met his unblinking brown eyes that were as mournful as they were unnerving.  
    "I'm glad I was able to provide that service," she shrugged, lifting her brows. Then he startled her by bringing her fingers to his lips, kissing them with a tenderness she had not known he possessed.  
    "Thank you." It was barely a whisper.  
    "You're welcome." Cally lifted another wary eyebrow even as she was touched by his odd behavior. She thought she also recognized from whom he had learned this uncharacteristic chivalrous display. It was something she had once seen their former leader Blake do.  
    She let her fingers slide gracefully free of his hand, then turned away. "Avon, all grateful posturing aside, you aren't aware of how strongly you can project your emotions. I felt them all the way down the corridor the other night."  
    "Until you had just informed me otherwise, I wasn't aware I had any such 'skill' at telepathy," he muttered sourly now. "Or that you could read _human_ minds."  
    The emphasis was on _human_ , something he was implying that she, as a telepathic Auron clone, was not. She did not take offense. Her race's telepathy was the product of a society that was more advanced than any of the Federation's worlds. And if he saw her as no longer human because of this, so be it.  
    "You don't. And I can't. The Moon Disc verified that you're peculiarly empathic for a _human_." She threw that insult back at him. "In a way you're like an emotional black hole, grasping outward and pulling matter to you, until eventually everything comes to you."  
    "That's a bit grandiose. Not only do I have an 'inner sea', but I am also a metaphorical cosmic force."  
    She shook her head. "Oh, but you are. That's why we're all still here with you on the _Liberator_. After Blake disappeared, you pulled us all to you like a magnet. We fell naturally into your orbit. You do have an irresistible gravitational pull, whether you like it or not."  
    She looked up into his face, expecting to see him take her criticism as a compliment, but instead saw a stricken look that he did not hide fast enough.  
    "I said a forbidden thing, didn't I?" she probed.  
    When he would not meet her eyes, she used the name again that sounded as sharp as cut glass to him.  
    " _Blake_."  
    She watched him flinch with the effort to suppress a sudden rise of emotion and she felt it in all its unchecked intensity. She had a terrible fascination for the discomfort she caused him with the simple invocation of Blake's name. It was her own keen copper eyes this time that held a level, studious gaze upon him as he looked away from her.  
     "Anna was your tragedy. But Blake was your secret," she said. "Everything you'd thought you'd abandoned with Anna Grant you projected onto Roj Blake-- he was your beacon of renewed hope after so much loss, wasn't he?"  
    "Ridiculous," Avon hissed. "Blake was a fanatic and a fool. I'm relieved by his absence."  
    Cally nodded. "Perhaps, in a way, yes. But Anna was your _first_ , wasn't she? And Blake... Blake was still your _second_."  
    Avon's eyes widened and then he turned a swift, angry back to her. She realized she had guessed correctly but it did not give her satisfaction to finally bring his biggest secret to the surface.    
    "It's all right, Avon. I knew about you and Blake." She tried an encouraging grin. "We ALL knew. Even Vila."  
    This made him heave a groan. She saw his shoulders sag.  
    "So it was that obvious. Why then have you all never used it against me?"  
    "Respect for Blake," Cally shrugged. She put a gentle hand on his arm, coaxing him back around to face her. She smiled. "Respect for you as well. Don't be embarrassed. We saw how you looked at one another. It didn't take telepathy to figure out what was going on between the two of you."  
    She saw his eyes flare with suppressed rage and she thought he might stalk from the room, his privacy violated. She rested both hands on his shoulders now as if to steady him, and he glared down at them dangerously.  
    "Blake was a good man. We _all_ loved him. But you loved him most of all."  
    He hissed, "You talk about him like he's dead. He's not dead. I would _know_ if he was dead."  
    Then he looked suddenly abashed, startled by his own admission. He rolled his eyes and sighed in defeat.  
     She then saw something remarkable: his mask had begun to fall away and the face beneath it looked younger, uncertain, lost. _Un-Avon._  
    He walked wearily over to Cally's bed and sat down in resignation. After a few more moments, he said in an almost inaudible voice, still looking askance: "It was just one foolish night. We were having an argument." He seemed mystified by the memory. "It became ridiculous. I insulted him and he... just smiled back. Then he somehow opened me up like a ..." His brows furrowed as he actually bit his lip.  
    "... a flower?" Cally asked, amused despite herself.  
    "I was going to say 'like a vivisection specimen', but 'flower' is a far kinder analogy." He sighed again, rubbing his hands together in a rare gesture of unease. "Oh, he was subtle. He knew that I wanted to feel safe and he offered me his protection. I think that's what made me succumb. He thought I wanted the _Liberator_ but I just wanted any kind of sanctuary. I wanted reassurance. I wanted someone to... just _want_ me, need me again."  
    "Did he know he was the only other person you had ever been with besides Anna?"  
    "I..." He stared into space. "I think he suspected."  
    Cally gestured to the bed, mutely asking for permission to sit beside him and he gave a reluctant nod. She sank down. "After Anna, you wanted to believe in someone again. And someone who would take on the burden of being the protector."  
    "He was the polar opposite of Anna. He took control, for which I resented him." He grimaced, then said quietly: "But I also found it... _exciting_."  
    He flushed. Cally found his new discomfiture endearing.  
    "Don't be ashamed, Avon," she grinned gently. "We all have our needs. In fact, here's a secret: Jenna and I experimented with one another a few times."  
    This pulled him out of his abashment. He turned comically wide brown eyes to her which made her laugh. "We didn't form a partnership as such," she said. "It was just fun, even exhilarating. Jenna is a very forceful lover and she's up for anything, really... Oh, Avon, you're actually blushing!"  
    "I... didn't know. I thought she and Blake..."  
    Cally chuckled. "I thought so too. Perhaps she and Blake may have been involved, but like us, they were more suited to being good friends rather than lovers. Don't be jealous, Avon."  
    "I'm not." He frowned.  
    "Oh, is that so? You do look a bit relieved."  
    He gave a sheepish grin. "Perhaps."  
    She reached over and risked ruffling his hair a bit with graceful fingers. He seemed uncharacteristically shy all at once. Was this the Avon that Blake had managed to find beneath his protective barricades? These defenses were continuing to crumble in her presense and she realized she was being given the same rare glimpse of humanity in Kerr Avon that both Anna and Blake had no doubt experienced. It would be fleeting, she knew, and he would just as quickly pull his armor back about himself if he no longer trusted her.  
    "Avon," she said. "Kerr."  
    "Don't call me that. I hate that name. It sounds like torn paper."  
    "Somewhat apt, though."  
    His body seemed to be unraveling from its stiff posture, loosening, his shoulders slumping in a sort of relief. So much weight removed from them now. Cally put a careful arm around him in solidarity, giving him an astute smile. "Avon, you can be yourself with me. Don't wear the mask, I know better. Telepath, remember?"  
    He closed his eyes. Then, wonderfully, his head fell to her shoulder and he sighed. She tentatively began to stroke his hair, trying to soothe him. She could scarcely believe this was occurring and she did not fail to recognize the privilege.  
    "So... do you think Blake is out there somewhere, wondering where we are?" she whispered.  
    "I wonder this every minute of the day," he murmured, his head feeling heavy against her. "I thought orchestrating my revenge for what I thought was Anna's death would help bring me relief from the loss of Blake. Now I know that anything I felt for Anna was based on a lie and... Blake is still gone no matter what I do."  
    Cally wrapped willowy arms about him then. She knew he had not come here looking for sympathy or another person's compassion-- he had made the awkward effort to instead comfort her for the loss of the Auronar. He had started to inquire into her own grief and yet she had deftly managed to detour her own sorrow and take control of his instead. She tried to convince herself that it felt better this way, more constructive.  
    "Oh, Avon, you're still exhausted," she observed. "Here, why don't you just..."  
    But then, to her surprise, he sank down onto his knees beside her and lay his head in her lap. "Is it all right that I do this?" he asked with tired gentleness.  
    "Y-yes," she said, astonished and not displeased. He sighed again.  
    She caressed his hair; it felt loose and velvety under her fingers.  
    There were no words for quite awhile until Cally finally said, "I am getting a cramp in my hip."  
    He dutifully lifted his head and climbed onto the bed to sit beside her. "My apologies. I know you're weary too, Cally. Can we just be weary here together for a little while longer?" He looked up at her with drained sepia eyes. "You and I? Telepath and empath?" He gave her another sad, sheepish grin.  
    She smiled with genuine gratitude then. "Of course."  
    She lay back carefully on to the bed and held her arms out in friendly invitation; he slid into them and she folded herself around him, nestling her head against his chest. "Both of us need to just lie here... and _breathe_. Just breathe. Will that be a problem?"  
    "No. I wish to continue doing that with some regularity."  
    She playfully mussed his hair. Then she settled against him, inhaling; he smelled like dark, spicy lavender and this surprised and delighted her. She was just about to drift comfortably into sleep there in his arms when she heard him whisper:  
     "You and Blake have given me more compassion than I deserve. And I haven't properly returned it."  
    "It is freely given," she said. "I don't know about Blake, but I don't charge a fee."  
    She heard his dry chuckle. Then: "Cally, I will always be there for you. Just call for me, anytime you are in need of me. You have an ally. Even when I'm in the bath."  
    "I'll make it a point to call you especially when you're in the bath then, just to annoy you."  
    "Impudent."  
    But even as his breathing fell in to a slow rhythmic pattern as she felt him dissolve into sleep, Cally considered the most alarming item within Avon that the Moon Disc had helped her uncover. This newly calm sea of his was deceptive and she had felt something far more disturbing: deep and hidden, lurking and sinister, an unknown element waited beneath the moonlit waves. It was almost alien; it did not belong there and was not even part of him. And not recognizing any logical reason for this "dark place" within Avon was frightening her.  
    This would need further, discreet investigation on her part.  
    She leaned over him, frowning, studying the sharp lines of his relaxed face, his jagged cheekbones and his regal hawk-like nose. They were softened only by long maple lashes and oddly sensuous lips. He seemed especially vulnerable in sleep. It would be so easy to fall in love with him now, she warned herself.  
    Perhaps she already had.  
    She needed to stay vigilant.  
  
     _The shadow will not be able to join again with the man_  
     _Though the darkness will stay_  
     _Another moon has come into this sea's orbit_  
     _And it will light the way_  
  
     _But the jealous darkness will continue to roam_  
     _It wants the shadow for its own._  
          
     _It waits for its chance._


	4. The Waterfall and the Rose Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the events of "Sarcophagus".

    The kiss had changed everything.  
     It had not been Cally herself whom he had kissed, but rather an intruder who had stolen aboard the _Liberator_ and claimed her appearance. But in the aftermath, an inviting doorway had opened wide between herself and Avon, leading to the possible discovery of stranger and more intriguing lands.  
    Alternately fighting and succumbing to the alien, a part of Cally had wanted to surrender, allow it to drain her and eventually steal her very being. She had been so tired, after all, and so empty: did her own needs really matter to anyone anyway? Perhaps it would be better to let a more needy and stronger force take claim to her.  
    She knew Avon had felt her diminishment even as the creature had also tried to gain control over her fellow crew-members, and then ultimately the ship itself. This creature would psychically devour her and then go on to make slaves of the others.  
    Except there had been one stoic obstacle in its impassioned path.  
     _Do you want death, Cally? Then I'll be there with you._  
    To her astonishment, Cally had discovered that Avon's suppressed empathy skills were considerable: he was somehow as intuitive as he was analytical. And with this newly honed ability, he had also become her protector.  
    The alien had not counted on Avon's willingness to become death itself. He would do that much for her.  
    Avon had reached inside the alien being's emotional core, sending his nascent empathy deep into the heart of the usurper. He went deeper still and then finally found Cally imprisoned within. With the intensity of his kiss, she had felt her strength and resolve returning.  
     _I want to live._  
    The power of her own buried emotions confused this other being who had assumed her likeness. And simultaneously, both she and the alien had made themselves dangerously vulnerable to Avon. This, she reasoned later, might have been the single most frightening thing she had ever done.  
    Cally had felt all the intensity of what Avon projected: love and loyalty-- and dark fury. _How dare you_ , he had mentally hissed at the doppelganger even as he pressed his lips against the golden mouth, crushed himself against her body, reached for the ring that was the source of her malignant power. _You're so beautiful when you're angry._  
    And thus was Cally freed.  
  
    *Avon, may I come in?*  
    Cally had only ever seen his cabin from the doorway. She had looked over his shoulder when he had wearily opened the door to her the night she had given him the herbal mixture for his bath. From the little she had seen of it, it had been a stark, gray affair, utilitarian and unadorned with any sentimental touches. It was what she had expected of Avon, after all. These past few weeks following that venture, they had spent their time together in her own cabin rather than his. Perhaps because hers might have seemed to him more comfortable and inviting, and thus safer. Or perhaps it was just that he was uncomfortable allowing anyone entrance into his own private domain.  
    Whatever the reason, they had only lain together in Cally's room, fully clothed, wrapped innocently in each others' arms, doing nothing more than finding that the rhythms of the other's breathing was conducive for sleep. When there had been any communication at all, it was mostly Avon's whispered replies to Cally's telepathic observations. He was becoming more comfortable with what he had first called her "mental intrusions", which had prompted her to warn him each time she planned to enter his mind. She had learned to ask permission with the simple telepathic inquiry:  
    *Avon, may I come in?*  
    He presently allowed the door to slide open and though she found him to be as diffident as ever, this was a more repaired Avon than her last encounter here in this doorway.  
    She found herself standing there with yet another offering, holding two sheets of paper. "I thought you might need something to brighten up your boring room," she said, tentative brows lifted.  
    "And that would be _yourself?"_ he asked, stepping aside with a curt nod and an extended arm, allowing her into his personal quarters for the very first time.  
    "Thank you for thinking so highly of my luminescent qualities," she said with a smirk. He was in a good humor, she observed; this would be helpful.  
    At first, his room looked as spartan as she had expected: slate-gray, blank and sterile. The bed contained a bland, chalk-colored blanket and single cushion for his head. She then turned about and to her amazement, discovered that the room was not colorless after all. She caught an unexpected glimpse of green and rose at his work desk. Though confined to one area of the room, the surprising colors nevertheless glared brightly in all the grayscale.  
    A dark evergreen fabric was thrown over the back of his chair, and an empty pastel-colored wine bottle on his desk seemed to contain... wait, was that a _flower?_  
    Wanting a closer look, she was suddenly aware of Avon's wary scrutiny and his badly concealed unease. She instead held up her two drawings and smiled. "I see I guessed correctly that your walls would be so plain."  
    He took the proffered art, one picture in each hand. "Your travels," he said with a faint smile.  
    She nodded. "They're the drawings you liked the best."  
    "How did you _know?"_ he asked with quiet skepticism. She had learned that an almost imperceptible thin line between his brows indicated that he was moved in some way. It was so miniscule, yet in an otherwise impassive face it was almost as expressive as tears.  
    "You spent more time looking at these two than the others. And I felt your mood grow more tranquil, more engaged when you stood in front of them."  
    One drawing depicted a waterfall in a ravine under an ocean of starlight; the other was of a sea stained rose by its floral algae as it washed over sugary sand.  
    "It would seem I cannot hide even the smallest surge of emotion from you," he said.  
    "Because these 'surges' are so rare to begin with they're like beacon flares," she smiled.  
    She now took the initiative to walk over to his desk to place the drawings on top of it. He had several computer monitors as opposed to everyone else's single cabin unit. Three separate screens were running columns of figures as if racing one another for a solution. There was a portable electronic tablet and a stylus resting on sheets of paper full of calculations. She had no doubt interrupted him in the midst of decrypting Federation data.  
    Out of place in this industrious scenario was the dark green material draped over the back of Avon's desk-chair. Closer inspection revealed it to actually be a tunic from the _Liberator's_ wardrobe room, of loose, flowing fabric with voluminous sleeves. Too big for Avon, she judged, but...  
    Ah, of course.  
    He had more than likely gone into Blake's cabin at some point and retrieved it. She had a sudden mental image of Avon seated at his desk, wrapping the tunic's full sleeves about himself like another's beloved arms.  
    She turned to him when she heard his irritated sigh. He stood beside her with the side of one hand cupped in the palm of the other, looking abashed. He had perhaps forgotten to hide the tunic away before he had opened the door and when she did not comment on it, she felt his relief. However, it was as if Blake himself had just entered the room.  
    Rather than focus anymore on Blake's tunic, she decided to turn her attention to the other thing near the desk that seemed just as extraordinary. On a shelf behind the bustling monitors was an ornate frosted pink bottle that contained a single Terran rose.  
    She recognized the now-empty bottle of Beta Gamman wine that Vila had taken such pains to steal for Avon ages ago. She could not resist reaching for the flower it contained. Its petals were full, open and perfect.  
    "It's synthetic," Avon said, matter-of-factly.  
    "It looks almost lifelike," Cally said in surprise, touching the silky pliable petals. "And feels like it too."  
    "I had Zen manufacture it for me. It's a sophisticated 3-D copy. I... I have always liked roses." He sighed. "Sadly, Zen was unable to adequately replicate the scent of a rose. The attempt only lasted for a single day."  
    She gave the artificial flower another caress and smiled at the strange novelty of Avon's appreciation for floral beauty, or at least for one particular flower. Then she tipped the wine bottle a bit. "And this--?"  
    "I'm afraid I finished that off the same night I had the unpleasant dream in my bath," he said with a wry grin.  
    He took a few steps to stand close beside her, pointing to the drawing of the sea, indicating where she had painted a wash of deep plum over the gilded horizon. "That's new. This bright white and green star was not in the sky the last time I looked at this. You've just recently added it."  
    "Very observant." She was pleased he had noticed this small detail. "But it's not a star. It's the _Liberator_."  
    "Are you trying to suggest in a very subtle way that we make a visit to this world of which you seem so fond?" Avon asked with a sly smile. "If we also had the luxury, I think I would like to experience this waterfall as well." He fingered the other drawing.  
    "They're both on the same world," she said with quiet solemnity. "Cserveitir is in Auron's solar system. It's a wild untamed planet and we Auronar sometimes went on carefully controlled study-expeditions there, always careful not to disrupt its natural ecology. We feared the Federation would mine it for its resources so we tried to protect it as much as possible. Now that the Auronar are gone, Cserveitir no longer has any protection and the Federation may have already invaded it and begun stripping it." Her slender fingers hovered over the cascade in the picture. "I was just a girl the first time I saw this ravine, and this waterfall. This was a magnificent setting that I will never forget. This... and the sea full of rose algae."  
    " _Rose_ algae," Avon nodded, impressed. "Ah, no wonder I'm so attracted to it."  
    Cally returned his mischievous look. "Are you going to tell me why you're so fond of roses?"  
    "No." And he simply grinned, that line of inquiry closed.  
    She shrugged. "Fair enough."  
    Avon's eyes softened as he returned his attention to the drawing of the waterfall. "I should like to be here, listening to its roar." He studied it and then placed it beside the sea. "I shall hang them both near my bed so that I might gaze upon them as I fall asleep and imagine myself ensconced in your drawings."  
    "Could you even _survive_ in such wide open spaces, Avon?" Cally teased. "I could, and have already done so, yes-- and Dayna and Blake have as well. But I can't see Tarrant, Vila or yourself traipsing about alien wildernesses or coastlines. For all your talk of being a survivor and adapting to every new challenge, I still see you more as a hothouse flower. You would flourish better under a protective dome, and only if someone watered you properly."  
    Avon's eyes lost focus for a minute as Cally felt something poignant manifest from his subconscious. When he sensed her awareness of it, he just as quickly concealed it.  
    "Well, now," he said with a cryptic smile, "there is still much about myself that would surprise you."  
    Not only was he learning to receive empathic cues, he was also learning to control his own mental emotional bursts, as well as put up barricades to protect them. For some reason, this made her uneasy, as it seemed to imply he was losing his trust in her.  
    She looked down, ashamed. The gifts of the drawings had been a ruse, of course. He knew of course that there was another reason for why she had personally entered the dragon's den.  
    Avon frowned slightly, that small line reappearing between his brows. But this time he only projected concern. "Cally, you know you can be candid with me. What's wrong?"  
    So she could not conceal her sorrow from him after all. She found to her chagrin that her breathing was beginning to thicken and verbal words were becoming difficult. "I wanted... to formally say thank you. For what you did. For banishing that creature."  
    He shrugged. "Do you think I did it for you alone? It would have either killed or enslaved the crew. I had no choice. It was completely self-serving on my part. I needed the _Liberator_ intact."  
    This dismissive declaration did not fool her and he knew it.  
    "I'm sorry," she said, her voice becoming more ragged, "If not for me, this never would have happened. I should have realized at the very beginning... I had felt _her_ presence when we first encountered the funeral ship. And _you_ knew I did. I'm sorry I was not strong enough-- she went right for my grief, took hold of me through it and--"  
    And then she was weeping, at long last, for the first time since Auron.  
    Shaking, sobbing, humiliated, she turned away from his cool analytical face and tried to walk to the door. Instead, his firm hand arrested her flight and she was turned bodily back to face him.  
    " _No_. You were stronger than _all_ of us. You beat her. How do think I would have won otherwise?"  
    She allowed him to gather her to him and she crumpled against his shoulder. He stood there as stationary as a pillar, tolerating the deluge.  
    *I'm sorry.*  
    She had forgotten to ask permission to enter his mind this time. But it made no difference, of course.  
    He lifted her chin very carefully with his fingertips so that she could meet the steady, burnt rust of his eyes. "There is no need," he said softly, "to apologize."  
    And that was when he kissed her, the _true_ Cally, for the first time.    
    It was not as he had kissed the alien: that had been a disarming, startling and passionate attack. This was a whisper of a kiss that barely touched her lips, his request for permission. And it was she who sought the full effect now, twining her arms about him and pressing her mouth to his, seeking more from it. Minutes passed this way, even as the last few tears slowed on her cheeks. When their lips drew apart, he brought his hands to her face and with gentle sweeps of his thumbs, wiped the residual wetness from it.  
    "I was once told by someone that tears were a sign of beauty and hope. And this is also true for you," he said.  
    "How oddly sentimental for you, of all people, to say such a thing," she murmured with gentle realization. "Was it Blake who made you cry?"  
    He sighed, annoyed. "Yes, the bastard. Sentiment was... _is_... my secret shame. I have failed to completely eradicate it."  
    He let his hands glide down her arms; she saw him look at the green tunic on the chair. "I have to be cautious about whom I love."  
    "Hmmm." She bit her lip and wiped the last of the damp from her eyes.  
    "You needed this release," he continued in a new, clinical tone of voice. "Keeping it within yourself was making you ill, and what good would you be to us... to _me_... if you were incapacitated?"  
    She lifted an eyebrow. "Yes. That would be most inconvenient. For _you_."  
    He flashed her a surprising grin. "I see we understand each other."  
    "Demonstrably."  
    She gave him a sly, knowing look. She inclined her head to the bed and in response, he let his eyes close halfway like a cat's. He took her arm, guiding her there as if she might lose her way otherwise  
    It was not long before they were lying entwined. There was no conversation, only the careful, luxurious and unhurried exploration of each other. They remained fully clothed even as they slid their hands over one another, caressing, testing. Cally climbed atop him, letting her hips move with a tidal rhythm, rising and falling against him until she felt his arousal. She then decided to try an Auronar experiment: she focused and began to send him empathic waves of pleasure. Oh, she was gentle at first so as not to overwhelm him. At the first delicious sensation, he stared at her in astonishment; and then his eyes closed as his head fell back. He began to sigh as she increased the intensity of her telepathic caresses. All the while she monitored him as if he were her patient, pleased with his reaction. She writhed against him and let the waves wash over him until he finally cried out.  
    Cally smiled when she saw tears slip from his eyes and down the sides of his face.  
    *Did you like that?* she asked in her softest mental voice.  
    He could not speak for a moment, then said in a low raspy voice: "That's quite a trick you have. I do think we're even now."  
    *Yes. Yes, I think we are.*  
  
    Cally dreamed:  
    She walked along the sand in the direction of the solitary, black-clad figure who stood as still as a statue before the advancing tide. The sky was already darkening to burgundy wine while the thin line of the horizon maintained the last of the mustard-colored light of the descending suns. The clouds drifted aside to reveal two pale moons, one larger and in control of the tides; the other more distant, watchful. Avon was looking up at the green and white pulsing spot that was the _Liberator_ in orbit, passing over the face of the bigger moon. But then he seemed distracted by the sea itself.  
    Something was starting to happen.  
    Cally saw in horror that a rippling shadow seemed to rush across the surface of the sea, flattening out the waves in its advance like a giant hand smoothing over wrinkled fabric. All sound seemed to be swallowed with it.  
    She tried to call out to Avon, but her voice would not emerge. She tried a telepathic cry but the absence of sound now became a roar. A mask of darkness fell over the face of the larger moon, even as the smaller second moon still remained shining and dim with hope.  
     *AVON!*  
    He did not answer. He was fixated on the blackened sea. Waiting.  
  
    Cally sat up beside Avon, who remained asleep beside her. She was panting. Down the corridor came the discernible sounds of Dayna's harp and her sea ballad, its beauty now eerie and ominous. She listened:  
  
_From this distance you are calm and pure_  
_Vast to the horizon, moonlight washes over your shore_  
_All is not as it seems_  
             _As I watch you slip in and out of dreams_  
  
_Breathe in, breathe out_  
_Surge forward, retreat in doubt_  
             _I will be your guide, I will calm your tide_  
  
_Is this how we are meant to be?_  
_We are tidal, you and me._  
  
    Cally would make it a point to talk to Dayna about the inspiration for her haunting composition. It was an unlikely coincidence that all of them would be so obsessed by sea-imagery at the same time.  
    She could not help thinking that perhaps having just shared her private inner self with Avon had made her receptive to his nightmares as well. Yet, gazing down at his face, she saw no evidence of a troubled sleep: his face in repose held the same porcelain serenity as any of the other times she had awakened by his side.  
    And yet...  
    She felt the sea turning black.  
    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is getting longer than I had originally planned. ;)  
> There are some call-backs to my earlier B7 stories here, starting especially with "Talisman". They all somehow became interconnected.  
> We're coming up on "Terminal" next...


	5. The Sea Gone Black

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably the strangest chapter yet: mostly dream sequences, it starts with a memory, then an erotic dream takes a terrifying turn.

    He was making the last of the preparations for tomorrow: exit visas would finally be secured and then he and Anna would both abscond; they would be free and they would be rich. It was that simple and that immediate. However, he could not help the persistent, disconcerting notion that he was overlooking something very crucial. He did not believe in premonitions, of course, but something in their plans felt very awry.  
     He chewed at his lip, ruminating over subtleties which might turn out to be unstable-- but was abruptly distracted by an unexpected object falling across his immaculate grey desk, infusing it with color: a single cut rose, a mix of creamy wine and a sunset.  
    "It's real," Anna Grant assured him with a nod when he looked up at her. "It's even been de-thorned. Even with that discrepancy, I was thinking of you when I acquired it."  
    Puzzled by this interruption to his work, Avon picked it up by the stem and twirled it between his fingers, considering it. "I fail to understand," he finally said.  
    "It's a _gift_ , you idiot. It's a reminder," Anna said, smiling, "A simple reminder of what we can acquire together."  
    "Hardly simple. As I understand it, even this single rose is extraordinarily expensive."  
    "Yes, again, a simple reminder of what's to come when we succeed. We can afford a whole bush eventually. A greenhouse full of them."  
    "And that would serve what purpose?" Avon said, disinterested, putting the rose down on the desk and stacking his preparation papers. He noticed the rose's scent however-- clean and subtle, bringing a boyhood memory of being in a Federation conservatory, seeing hundreds of these rare flowers which had then seemed to him completely useless.  
    Anna crossed her arms, smirking. "For the purpose of beauty. Don't you think it's beautiful, Avon?"  
    He had no interest in flowers. "How did you come by it?" he asked in a flat, almost accusatory tone.  
    Anna sat on the edge of the desk and gave him a secretive look. "You have your connections, I have mine." She reached over and picked it up again, stroking the petals. "I simply told my 'connection' that I wanted one for a gift. And I thought a rose reminded me of you."  
    She brushed the petals against his cheek in a caress, and he closed his eyes against it for just a moment. It was pleasant, yes, its fragrance was odd, even calming. Perhaps he could understand the appeal, then. But then he recovered himself.  
    "Why would a rose remind you of _me?"_ he muttered.  
    Anna moved from the edge of the desk and into his lap, twining her arms about his shoulders. "Singular, rare, beautiful. Full of thorns."  
    "You did say that this one had been de-thorned."  
    "Yes. Yes, I did," she said in an odd, more sober voice, but quickly smiled again. "You are both lovely and alive in this dead world."  
    "Not alive any longer," Avon stated in a bored voice, once more giving the flower his cold analysis. "I believe the act of cutting it and presenting it to me has effectively killed it."  
    Anna sighed. "Once the pressure of all this is over, you have _got_ to lighten up, my dear." She used the stem of the flower like a pointer to emphasize her words. "The rose bush it came from is still alive and this is only a single bloom from it." She passed her fingers once more over its creamy petals and then stroked them across his lips. "It will keep producing roses. Imagine our own mansion, gardens full of them..."  
    "And again, to what practical use would something so frivolous be to me?" he asked.  
    She put her hands on either side of his face and looked him directly in the eyes, exasperated. "I probably should have left the thorns on after all, seeing this is how you you're going to treat my gift!"  
    He sighed, rubbing his forehead. "I'm sorry, it's been a somewhat stressful day. I do appreciate the gesture, Anna."  
    "I know, you peculiar man," she smiled and softly kissed his forehead. "It's just that not everything exists to be useful. Aesthetics, Avon. I must remind myself of this as well." She looked away then. "Isn't there anything you find beautiful just for the sake of being beautiful?"  
    He grinned at her then. "I actually prefer substance with my beauty."  
    He waited for her to smile back at his compliment, but her eyes were focused past him."Maybe soon you'll be able to look at the world and not just see it for its usefulness to you. You'll see it for _itself_... and that will be _enough."_  
    Only later did Avon realize that she had not directed this statement at him.  
      
    The rose, like his time with Anna Grant, would prove to be ephemeral. In retrospect, he would have liked to have seen it perched in a vase of water, watch it unfurl like a small spiral galaxy, and then watch it begin to die, its petals dropping off one by one. Then he would have probably wondered what the point of this whole exercise had been. There would have been only a few days for it to be have been full and gloriously open, and he might have breathed in its delicate non-chemical scent with Anna at his side.  
    Of course, events took a decidedly different course.  
    The very next day after being given this rose, he had been shot and wounded while obtaining exit visas; and after recovering with allies and believing Anna was dead, he had been caught, arrested and put on a prison ship. And it was here that he met, among others, a man named Roj Blake, which began an even more fateful journey.  
    Anna had lied to him, of course. She had indeed seen the world only in relation to how useful it could be to herself--and he had been one of the things that she had found _quite_ useful and then ultimately discardable, a bit like the rose she had "obtained" for him. He thought that perhaps her gift of it to him had been out of last minute guilt. Her supposed love, before he had found out that she had been running him, before he had discovered her code-name was "Bartholemew", had been as impermanent as floral perfection.  
    Now Roj Blake, on the other hand-- Blake would have stolen and tried to maintain an entire rose bush and proclaimed, _"Roses for everyone!"_ It did not matter how dubious Blake's gardening skills would be (the bush in question would probably be dead within a week and still Blake would be confounded by how it had happened) but Avon would find Blake's disastrous attempts to nurture it to be worth his own reluctant contributions. Despite Blake's frequent failures, Avon had been alarmed to find that he trusted Blake implicitly, even _with_ the man's occasional idiotic tendencies.  
    Recalling that very first rose from Anna, Avon now glanced at the new, immortal doppelganger that Zen had manufactured for him. Roses held a new meaning for him now: they were mythical, an impossible symbol, a treasure to be sought. Also thinking of Blake and all his bad metaphorical "gardening" decisions made him reach for the green tunic on the back of his desk chair. He gathered it around himself absently and then retreated to his bed to lie down, all the while pulling the generous fabric of it up to his chin like a blanket.  
    This might have been a night in which he sought out Cally's company, but she was currently on watch on the _Liberator's_ main deck. So be it. He needed the solitude and the sleep. For the past few weeks, he had spent time alone in his cabin, occupied with discovering the source of a mysterious signal. It seemed to have an encoded message attached to it as well, and deciphering it was becoming a bit of an obsession as of late. But he did have a hunch, something he rarely relied on because he always required hard data to back up his findings. The privacy was also essential because... it seemed to be addressed to him personally. Rows of numbered code translated into:  
   KERRAVONKERRAVONKERRAVONKERRAVONKERRAVONKERRAVON...  
    Etcetera.  
    He would need Zen for this. If he was not mistaken, there also seemed to be coordinates attached. He had not shared this anomaly with the others yet: it still required further investigation. And quite possibly the messages were of a more sensitive nature and better left private for now.  
    Cally's evocative hand-painted drawings were tacked to the interior wall of his sleeping alcove. The cabin lights began to gradually dim as he focused on their serenity and the personality of the mind that had rendered them; he imagined Cally's soothing presence even as he caught traces of spicy musk that had been Blake as he folded the tunic about himself. He focused on the rose sea first-- and then the waterfall.  
    He sank into it.  
  
    There would never be another dream like this.  
    Upon later review, he deduced that perhaps something of Cally's sensual empathy had transformed his subconscious, made it more pliable to his own wishes, feeding him an impossible pleasure he would never have in his waking life.  
    He was wholly cognizant that he was in a dream state. Because of this awareness, perhaps he could even manipulate this scenario to his own wishes, mold its outcome. With amusement, he decided to begin the experiment.  
       He would later be astonished at himself for how beautiful, poignant, joyful (and yes, wholly erotic ) he had sculpted it.  
    It began simply enough with him standing in Cally's memory, before the waterfall of Cserveitir, with the roar of the cascade about him and the aquamarine starlit sky high above this ravine. (The colors were especially vivid. He never remembered dreaming in such color, and again it may have been due to Cally's influence.) It looked passably like Cally's delicate painted drawing-- there was the verdant canyon, a tangles of tree roots and giant draping ferns. And yet it was something wilder and grander because it was being manufactured by his own unconscious imagination. The water fell from cliffs far out of his range of sight and showered him in a sultry mist. His boots traversed a spongy moss floor to the flat violet-gray rocks ringing the cascade's pool like altar stones. He bent down to the water of the pool at first to drink from cupped hands and felt eyes upon him from some source. He became aware that he was the deer being stalked. But by what lions? (Or whatever passed for large predators on Cally's paradise planet.) He could feel two such creatures close by... and a possible third one, much more dangerous, biding its time elsewhere in this dream.  
    Curious. Why would he cast himself in the role of the willing victim?  
    He proceeded.  
    The water tasted of rosewater and wine. It should not have. He took generous gulps of it before seating himself on one of the altar-like stones and pulling his boots off. It was humid here by the falls (volcanic activity nearby?), and he loosened the high collar of his leather tunic. Barefoot now, he swung his legs up onto the stone and lay back lazily, misted by the cascade, and made an offering of himself. He waited for his lions to prowl forward and claim him.  
    The experiment was working wonderfully. The first one was already nearby and her gentleness was of course deceptive.  
    "Hello, Cally."  
    He sat up on the rock to face her. She was standing on the other side of the pool, the mist obscuring her slightly so that she was revealed gradually like a materializing ghost. Tall and slender as ever, dressed in the delicate coral/scarlet of the rose sea, her long gown silken and translucent as she strode carefully over the damp flat rocks towards him. She wore soft brown boots which made her steps as tentative as the stalking lioness he had originally imagined her to be. He swung himself off the altar-rock and went to meet her half-way; but she paused.    
    Several feet from him, she tilted her head with new, amused interest. She remained silent, not even asking for permission to speak in his mind. Waiting, she probed him with intuitive brown eyes. He sighed at how intoxicating she looked, the outline of her body visible through the filmy peach and crimson fabric. Why this maddening delay? He wanted to tumble her down onto the moss.  
    Then gracefully, she now crouched as if she had found something interesting on the ground, even more like an expectant hunter, wary of a new creature present. Something behind him had caught her attention and she smiled at him then, waiting for him to notice the arrival of this new intruder.  
    He heard the voice first and its deep invocation of his name. Then the second lion, who was not the deadliest of those who stalked him, caused him to falter, astonished. All at once, he lost his languid composure at the quiet greeting and he turned, compelled.  
    Blake stood there in shades of rust and evergreen like a camouflaged woodland king. Avon felt his knees almost give out beneath him at the wondrous sight. Oh damn his wretched fantasy life.  
    "We're glad you made it," Blake said with a grin.  
    Avon felt himself pulled forward almost against his will, mystified by the hold Blake had over him. The bigger man smiled and held his arms open, those voluminous sleeves he knew so well open like wings...  
    (that even now he was wrapped in as he slept)  
    And Blake folded him against him. Avon leaned into him, sighing. The big hands held his face and he lowered his lips to his, the kiss lasting longer than any in the conscious world, defying all logical passage of time. Avon was aware that he behaved in a far different manner in Blake's presence than in Cally's, and he could feel her regarding them with a silent, pleased fascination for this reunion. When Blake released him and stepped away to look him up and down, Cally approached. Now they all stood an equal distance from one another. Cally and Blake, independent of each other, began to circle Avon on opposite sides, like moons in his orbit. He stood there unmoving, intrigued by this scenario he had concocted, and waited for what was to come next.  
     Blake and Cally took steps forward and began to operate in concert, reaching out a hand to touch him, to stroke his hair, caress his face, chest, down to his thighs. Finally they converged on him. Cally lifted Avon's arms up over his head as Blake began to pull at Avon's tunic, easing it off until Cally managed to discard it completely. Avon stood there languidly, his breathing thickening as he let them undress him. They slid his trousers and undergarments down and now he was naked and vulnerable between his two lions.  
    Blake and Cally, still fully clothed and still without a verbal or telepathic word, wrapped themselves about him, taking turns with different parts of him. He allowed them to do what they wanted with him, trapped between them with his body as their plaything. The willing prey.  
    Oh, this was very, _very_ interesting indeed. How much farther should he go?  
    Cally then somehow produced a small glass jar and began to unscrew its top.  
    "Where were you hiding that?" Avon asked with amusement and a genuine need to know.  
    She lifted an eyebrow. "It's a dream, Avon. Just go along with it."  
    With her fingers, she scooped from it a golden oil and began to stroke it over his chest. He watched with intellectual interest: it was of a smoother consistency than honey and had a faint metallic sheen to it. It immediately warmed his skin and smelled of floral citrus.  
    "Where do you keep finding these concoctions?" he asked.  
    "Shut up, Avon." This was Blake growling gently in his ear. "You're ruining the moment." Playfully, he covered Avon's mouth with one big hand, and with the other he reached around, taking hold of a more intimate part of him, causing him to shudder and moan in obedience. Meanwhile, Cally continued her ministrations, smoothing the metallic oil over his face now, as if painting a mask.  "This is your fantasy after all," Blake chided him. "Stop analyzing it and depriving yourself of any unexpected pleasure."  
    Well, Avon thought, consider me reprimanded.  
    Avon looked down at himself: he had become a glistening golden color from the oil Cally had applied. "What is the point of this?" he asked her, gliding slippery fingers over his arm. She had effectively burnished him. The substance however felt soothing, even healing. More of Cally's magical potions, even if this one was completely fantastical and existed only within this dream. "What _purpose_ does this serve?"  
    "We'll let Blake take over and show you," she said with a mischievous purr.      
    Then Cally, now that she had coated the front of Avon with the golden oil, passed the little jar of it to Blake. He grinned with relish and now took his turn at painting Avon gold. (Ah, a two-pronged attack, Avon thought.) Blake smoothed the elixir over Avon's shoulders, down in sweeping strokes into the small of his back, then down between his thighs and finally into the crevice of more remote regions. Avon arched backwards in surprise at the sensation. So _that_ was the purpose of the oil.  
    Then Blake whispered huskily, "Do you want me...?"  
    Avon gave a barking laugh that was a half-sob. "Yes, of course, you utter moron."  
    *Well now,* Cally inquired sweetly, *Avon: may I also come in as well?*  
    "Oh, yes, you most certainly may."  
    And then he heard Cally's chuckle as he felt her soft attack: she began to send him her empathic tides that washed over him in gentle, erotic surges-- until they finally engulfed him. And at the same time, Blake took him.  
    He felt he might shatter into thousands of subatomic particles-- a wonderful disintegration. He could dissolve completely in his own ecstatic fantasy, a teleportation gone joyously wrong. He was overcome, helpless-- and deeply in love with both of them at this moment. They had taken possession of his arms and legs, his body, his very being; he was immobilized, contained by their glorious ministrations.  
    He really could not take much more of this. He might never want to leave his fantasy world ever again.  
    But then an insidious voice reminded him: _Anna Grant._  
    His dreaming mind was deluged now with cruel memories: a very real Anna Grant holding a rose out to him; Anna making love to him for his very first time (he had been a sheltered academic with no time for frivolous romances. Only there was Anna and _only_ Anna...)  
    Anna Grant dead in his arms.  
     _I let you go._    
    He could feel the ominous presence of the hidden element he had forgotten about: the third lion. This creeping unknown, this unseen, most dangerous of creatures, was hungrier than all three of them and he felt its presence finally emerge from the shadows of this dream setting. It reached dusky claws for him. He could feel it desiring him, tearing at him, trying to separate him from his lovers.  
    And this most terrifying of monsters wanted release. It had always been there, and perhaps it always would be. And now it did not want to be ignored.  
    It whispered to him: _They'll all betray you, you realize, just like her..._  
     _No, not these two,_ he growled at it in return. _Their ridiculously big hearts make up for the one which I lack. They will never betray me._  
     _Are you so certain...?_  
    He was grateful for how tightly Cally and Blake held onto him, protecting him, even as they caressed him and fondled him and ultimately made him cry out in desperation, long and loud. His body oozed down to ground; he was on his knees then, and they fell down beside him, catching him, holding on. He felt boneless, weak and spent; his head fell onto Blake's strong shoulder even as Cally wrapped sheltering arms about him. "Don't let go of me," he hissed. "Hold me tighter. It's trying to take me away."  
    Yet his very essence was dissolving between them, being torn away like a more terrifying teleportation. He was breaking apart in their arms and they were fading from view as he was shattering and reforming.  
    It was too much-- there was a surge and he felt his arrival. He opened his eyes and the scene before him was a shock: different and bleak-- a beach of crushed pewter lay before him, and the sea before him was... _wrong._ Rather than it being the sea of rose algae in Cally's drawing, what he now confronted looked like liquid obsidian. The glass-like surface of the ocean was thick as oil and did not ripple in the wind that even now tore at him. The black tide lapped hungrily at the sand, reaching for him.  
    It was jolting: the verdant waterfall with its warm spray and his lovers was now lost completely and he stood instead on this stark, barren, nightmare shore.  
     But... _alone?_  
    (Transform back into a statue. It will be better that way.)  
     His lovers had vanished to the ether of that other dream. Perhaps he had been too greedy and this new phantasmagoria was his punishment for having manipulated his fantasies. The awakened, angry creature had stolen him away from his illusory happiness. Perhaps, then, it had done him a favor.  
    He waited for the inevitable approach of the greedy darkness.  
     _I already know what's inside of you. I know how to control you,_ said the sea.  
    He waited to turn to stone again in order to barricade himself against what was to come. He had done it before, after all, in that other dream of the bloody battlefield. If the ocean advanced to claim him now, at least it would find its work of drowning him difficult.  
    Then _she_ was there. (No, not Anna-- the _other_ nightmare.)  
    "Are you the third lion?" he asked her in a dull voice.  
    Perfect and beautiful, the black silk replaced by black leather very much like his own. Of course she was dressed like himself now, but in somewhat sleeker leather trousers and tunic. He had conjured her himself, out of his darker materials.  
     Servalan said, "No, Avon. Haven't you realized it yet? That creature you fear is within. It's you. And it lives... _there."_ She gestured to the inky ocean. "But if you'd like, we can summon it together. It would be a great ally to me, don't you think? Even from here, I can feel its destructive hunger, its jealousy, its fury, its fear. Yes, it's afraid of you and you've been keeping it within, starving it. Don't you think it's time to set it loose? Hasn't it been a prisoner inside you for far too long?"  
    His eyes were still alive and glanced up into the sky where two moons hung: one darkened as if in eclipse, the other ghostly and pale. The beautiful, needle-sharp _Liberator_ pulsed like a jewel as it glided ponderously across the sky above the black sea.  
    Servalan walked up to him and, probably more as an intellectual exercise, kissed him. Getting no more reaction from this, she stroked him, caressed his hair, trying to melt him as his lovers had done. Seeing that this too was ineffective, she sighed. "Well, you _are_ a difficult one. Just as well-- as I said before, you have done this to yourself. We shall meet and discuss all this just one more time, I think."  
    With that, she turned to the sea and began to walk with slow grace into it, her inky leather dissolving into gossamer in the black water as it absorbed her. She sank below it without a ripple.  
    The nightmare was not over yet. The sea was still not finished with him.  
    He was a statue on the shore, alone, waiting for either the ocean wind to take centuries to grind him down, or the tide to advance more swiftly and swallow him.    
    His eyes closed. He had been here before in his dreams, of course. And so the outcome was familiar.  
    "Avon," said Blake.  
    Avon opened his eyes to Blake's bearded face. In the other part of the dream, Blake had come to him clean-shaven, handsome and ebullient, dressed like he had stepped from a mythic adventure just for the purpose of seducing him. Now he looked haggard, dressed in white rags. He was so different from the woodland king of the earlier fantasy that Avon looked away, his eyes smarting with tears... or was that just the stinging salt wind?  
    "We're here together. How apt," Avon finally muttered. Somehow being a statue again did not impede his ability to speak this time around.  
    He had figured out the moment he had emerged in this seaside purgatory that he was no longer in control of his own dreaming. Had he been, he would have had a more robust Blake take him into his arms and perhaps carry him to some shelter somewhere yet unseen in this milieu-- and then make perfect love to him again. But Blake only stood there looking ravaged and despairing. He looked defeated and even more lost than during the battle for Star One.  
    This was rather a Blake who needed Avon's rescuing. But how could he, heartless Avon, help him? He had turned himself to stone. Yet hadn't a kiss worked last time to melt him back to himself?  
    But Blake seemed unable, or perhaps unwilling this time to free him from his self-imposed transformation in such a manner.  
    "Avon, I will wait for you. But you must _find_ me first," Blake said to him.  
    " _Find_ you? What the hell are you talking about?" Avon snapped. "You're standing right here in front of me."  
    "Find me. And then the two of us can finally be safe together. I will give you instructions."  
     "Blake, what are you blathering on about?" Avon asked in desperation. "You're _right here."_  
     Blake went on: "And it must be NOW. Will you come for me?"  
     An inscription began to appear in the crushed silver sand, written as if by a phantom hand. A series of numbers at first, which were then erased away by the wind, only to be replaced by new words which formed in repetitive lines:  
       KERRAVONKERRAVONKERRAVONKERRAVONKERRAVONKERRAVONKERR AVON  
    AVON AVON AVON  
    I AM HERE.  
    I AM HERE.  
    Avon knew then. And he looked into the sky at the glittering point of light that was the _Liberator_ passing over the face of the small moon. This moon, in contrast to the larger bloodily eclipsed moon, still hung like a hopeful lantern in the bruised purple of the sky. It shone with defiance over the onyx black sea.    
    Then--finally--Blake kissed him. It was a gentle, gracious kiss, nothing more. Despite his being a statue, he could feel the scratch of those rough hedge-like whiskers against his smooth chin.  
    Blake said: "And now you're just pretending to be made of stone. You really _aren't,_ do you realize that?"  
    He was right of course. He was still just flesh and blood. He really should do something about that someday.    
    "Come to me. You'll find a way," said his friend/lover/antagonist; and then Blake turned to the sea, made a running leap into that black tide, diving beneath its surface. No splash occurred as he disappeared: it was if the voracious sea had simply gulped him down.  
    Avon saw the _Liberator_ again, impossibly close. Somewhere, he was hearing Zen's voice:  
    +INFORMATION. THE COORDINATES HAVE BEEN SET AND THERE IS NO OTHER OUTCOME.+  
    None?  
    +ALL OUTCOMES WILL BE TERMINAL.+  
  
    He started awake, gasping. He was entangled in Blake's tunic and he grasped at it with his fists. Then, calming himself, he carefully unfurled it from his sweat-drenched body. He threw his legs over the side of the bed and sat there for a long time, considering.  
    Finally, he whispered aloud: "Yes. _Yes._ I know where you are now."  
    He went to his monitors and checked the progress of his clandestine project. Of course, he could not rely on ridiculous nightmares to verify the outcome he was already anticipating. Again, he would need hard facts, accurate data. But his subconscious had possibly nudged him in this inevitable direction.  
    Deep in contemplation, he took the synthetic rose from the empty wine bottle and began to twirl it absently between his fingers. The only way to discern if the messages he was receiving were indeed from Blake was to turn the ship around and head to the coordinates. It was an incredibly foolhardy, even stupid thing to do. And so unlike him. (Blake would be so proud of him, he realized dismally.) That was why it must be done without the crew's knowledge.  
    However, hiding his intent from Cally would be his greatest challenge now.  
  
    Cally felt the empathic surge in all its glorious abandon. She was certain the whole crew had felt it as well.  
    She had been somewhat bored on the _Liberator_ flight deck. Their destination was a routine trip to Calipheron and she had taken her meager art supplies with her to perhaps wait and feel inspired. She had never taken them beyond the sanctuary of her cabin, but she had grown bolder as of late. (Thinking of the rare softening of Avon's brown eyes, she smiled.)  
    All at once, she was bombarded by the psychic transmission. And it was undeniably Avon. It was startling enough to jolt her, make her knees collapse and cause her to fall down into the command chair, reeling. A great wave of sensual pleasure rolled over her and made her falter and gasp at its intensity. She prevented herself from crying out. Rather than becoming alarmed, she instead leaned back and closed her eyes, deciding to experience the sensation.  
    Perhaps there was a reason she was so receptive to unknown psychic invitations, to the point of possession: she was desperately lonely. To feel another within her mind again was something for which she now ached. She wanted that intimate joining, however dangerous.  
    He must be dreaming, she thought, and dreaming well indeed. She sighed, feeling his pleasure. Oh, Avon, you must learn more control.  
    Then--abruptly-- it took a terrifying turn. She found herself pulled into it, almost by force now. She became an invisible observer, back to that symbolic shore where the sea had gone black. There, there, _there,_ deeper she went into his dream until she felt it turn malignant.   
    He stood solitary on the sand and the oily surf began to heave towards him. (Where were the moons? Hadn't there been two of them before?) She was fully conscious she was in a dream state as well, but within another's mind. She took steps towards him but then saw the waves begin to boil and churn and... _something_... emerged from them. An emptiness like a hole cut from the night, almost recognizable as a human shape. Featureless, made of dusk, it strode toward Avon, who seemed seduced by it, waiting for its embrace. Then to her horror, tendrils of what might be smoky gossamer began to wrap about his torso, encircling him, taking claim to him.  
     _*AVON!*_ she cried mentally. He was too entranced, his eyes closed in a sort of lust as it entwined him, bound him. He gave what sounded like a moan of pleasure as it cocooned him completely in its black threads.  
    She ran to him now, grasping at this thing, fighting to tear these psychic tendrils apart. However one of them unfurled itself and formed a solid black whip that lashed her through the air and sent her backwards into the cold wet sand.  
    Now she screamed vocally as well as telepathically.  
    For a moment, he seemed to hear her. Someone else's pain had broken this thing's hold over him for an instant, and she saw the bound form twist as if trying to free himself. But its hold on him was too complete-- Avon, bound by this darkness, was then pulled into the writhing waves and down beneath its surface. Then as abruptly as the ocean had grown mad with motion, it became as still as black glass once more.  
    But then, abruptly, something clutched at her shoulder.  
      
     _"Cally!_ Are you all right?"  
    She glanced up and relief engulfed her. It was Dayna's concerned face hovering over her, and she was holding onto her by the shoulders. The younger woman's large brown eyes looked fearful.  
    "I came in for my shift and found you here, thrashing about. You looked like you were having a nightmare."  
    Cally wiped at her sweat-drenched forehead. "And so I was." She desperately hoped Dayna had not been a witness to the other, more exhilarating effects of the nightmare's prelude. "I-I'm sorry-- it's not like me to fall asleep on watch. It's something I would expect Vila to do." She groaned and rubbed at her face with the palms of her hands. "How irresponsible of me."  
    Dayna grinned in relief now, giving Cally's shoulder a reassuring pat. "We've all been there," she sighed. "It happens to the best of us... and I sometimes think you _are_ the best of us." She sat down beside her, frowning. "That must have been _some_ dream. I've been having some wild ones lately as well. I must say, for a minute there I thought--well, when I saw you behaving so oddly--"  
    "You thought that I was possessed again." Her smirk then became a frown, as realization set in. "Perhaps I'm not the one this time." She chewed her lip. "Did you just say you were having alarming dreams as well? I'm suspecting we all have. Which reminds me, I need to ask about that song you've been working on these past few weeks."  
    "Oh, _'Tidal'?_ Tarrant and I had been talking about unusual dreams. We discovered that we had had a very similar nightmare and... well, that was what started the idea for 'Tidal', at any rate."  
    Cally looked troubled, tapping her mouth with steepled fingers."And I suspect Vila has been having bad dreams as well."  
    Dayna became wary, her brows lowering over suspicious dark eyes. "Cally, does this have anything to do with your abilities...?"  
    "Indirectly, perhaps," Cally murmured and bit her lip again. "First: tell me about your song."  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter made me change my audience rating to "mature". Coming up next, Avon's meltdown begins.


	6. The Darkness That Stayed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the events of "Death Watch": Cally investigates the source of Dayna's song as Avon usurps the flight deck.

    Dayna's fingers caressed the harp strings, and Cally, entranced by the intricate motion they made, listened as the younger woman played only the melody of her song "Tidal" without its evocative lyrics.  
    "Have you always written music?" Cally asked, fascinated. "Back on Sarran?"  
    "Secretly," Dayna admitted. "Between building archaic weapons and experimenting with ballistics."  
    "You are certainly a woman of contradictions, Dayna," Cally grinned.  
    "Well, I'm part-creator, part-destroyer," Dayna sighed. "That's what my father always said, at any rate."  
     The two of them sat on the observation deck, a large room with a curving wall devoted to a vast horizon-wide window that revealed the portion of the galaxy that the _Liberator_ pierced on its way to Calipheron. Stars and planets streamed past and the occasional meteor shot a diagonal trajectory through it all.  Everything seemed to be in motion out there beyond that colossal window, whereas here inside, its closest watcher remained still as a statue.    
    For Cally and Dayna were not alone: off in the corner, preoccupied with his own moody observation of open space, was a despondent Del Tarrant. Having been there for over an hour, unmoving, the young pilot's back remained to them as he studied the advancing star systems. They did not expect him to join them in conversation.  
    Cally had never seen him this idle for so long. Yet she was well-acquainted with the sensations of emptiness and resentment that flowed from him now. Even an ex-Federation officer as feisty and arrogant as Tarrant might have his moment of grief and reflection. He was poring over the very recent memory of his older brother Deeta's execution, which he had witnessed during a televised deathmatch. Linked with his brother via a neural disc, he had also felt the moment of his death.  
    Yet another sibling lost amongst them, Cally thought. And one lover killed. And a father. And the entire population of Auron. At least Vila alone had the small comfort of knowing that his beloved Kerrill was safe on a distant world, if no longer accessible to him. However, there had been a significant increase in Vila's drinking (if that was at all possible) since the events of Keezarn.  
     Tarrant gazed out at the passing galaxy with a sort of stoic nihilism; Cally could feel him trying to make some sense of the scope of his personal loss in relation to the unforgiving universe they traversed. His arm was slung back with abandon over the observation couch and he sat very still, oblivious to the other presences in the room with him. Cally wondered if he had slept at all and knew that a foolish recommendation of an herbal bath to remedy the situation would be as unwelcome a suggestion for Tarrant as it had been for Avon.  
    Dayna, however, remained very aware of Tarrant's distracted company. She gave him continuous glances as she strummed the melody of a wordless "Tidal". Instead of singing to it, she spoke softly to Cally about its inception.  
    "I don't know. I've just been a little obsessed with memories of home and the ocean," she began in a voice as precise as her notes. "The same places that gave me comfort on Sarran also promised me adventure. It was dangerous, of course, but I just needed to get _out_ there on the shores and explore, or I think I would have gone mad. I had to watch out for native Sarrans so I always carried a weapon concealed somewhere on me, much to my father's constant horror. Or I took my archaic bow and arrows." Her voice fell silent for a moment, the melody continuing even as her brows furrowed."But it seems that the monster I had to fear the most ended up falling from the sky."  
    "Servalan?" Cally asked, then she thought for a minute. "Or perhaps... _Avon?"_    
    Dayna gave a wry smile. "There's an argument for both. After I joined you on the _Liberator_ and eventually became friendly with Tarrant, he and I had conversations about dreams. After comparing strange and and silly ones, we discovered that we both had had an oddly similar dream about an empty shoreline where it seemed _something_  was waiting to happen. The shore in my dream had two moons in the sky-- and Tarrant said he remembered there being somebody standing, waiting, looking out to sea in his version. He wasn't able to tell if the person was a man or a woman, or even _human._ So we combined our dreams and began to make up a story for the person standing on the shore. We added to it over days and made it a game. We decided the person was waiting for a friend... or a lover. Or _both."_ She lifted her eyebrows, embarrassed; then her expression softened again as she glanced over at the oblivious, sullen pilot who still watched the observation window. "I've been studying Old Calendar ballads -- you know how I'm fascinated by antiquity-- so I started to write a song about the story we'd made up. Only... the more I wrote, the more I kept having dreams about that shoreline. And the sea in these new dreams kept getting more... _threatening."_  
    "How so?" asked Cally, wary.  
    "It got considerably _weirder,_ for one. The sea started growing darker, the water started turning black and... there was something living in it. A monster, maybe."  
    Cally stiffened. "Go on."  
    "The thing in the water wanted this person standing on the shore. To pull him in there with it, I don't know, to eat him or... just for company, who knows?" Dayna gave a delicate shrug as she continued to finger the harp chords without pause. "The first time I dreamed this I was actually so terrified that the only thing I could think to do was to write it into the song somehow, add it to the story. That somehow made the nightmare something I could control." She stopped playing now and caressed her harp with pride as if it was one of the weapons she had built. "And then the nightmares weren't so bad. I found a way to take their power away."  
    "Perhaps whatever you were feeling during the day was shaping your dreams as well as the song's storyline," Cally mused, though not convinced it was as simple as this.  
    Dayna looked over at the other end of the observation deck at the solitary figure of Del Tarrant still staring at the drifting stars. "I think it's taken on a different direction as of late. I imagined the man in the dream might be Tarrant." She looked embarrassed once more and this was very unlike her. "I played it for Vila and _he_ thought I just wanted an excuse to write a love song. But then Vila and I got to talking and he told me how much he missed Kerrill." Kerrill was the female mercenary Vila had loved and lost in an astonishing and unprecedented act of bravery on Keezarn, surprising everyone, most of all himself. "But here's another strange thing: when Vila heard my song, he told me he was _also_ having dreams about a black sea. Only in his dreams, he was seeing the _Liberator_ in the sky flying over it."  
    Despite feeling a chill go through her, Cally considered this new addition to the mystery.  
    "Cally, are we somehow all psychically linked?" Dayna asked her then. "Is there a reason we're all having the same dream? Are _you_ having this dream too?"  
    Cally gave her a fierce stare. "Yes. And I'm trying to get to the bottom of it."  
    Who on board had been the first dreamer? Whose nightmare was it that they were all experiencing? She had thought it had first originated with Avon-- but it was _she_ who had been the one to paint seas full of rose algae. Had she unwittingly broadcast her own nostalgic images through her telepathy? Had it all started after the Auronar were killed, when her grief had been at its most repressed and forced into her unconscious and she had spent hours alone drawing and painting her fondest memories?  
    If she were indeed the originator of the sea motif, why then was the sea in everyone's dreams not full of beautiful rose algae? When had it turned dark and monstrous?  
    When _Avon_ had begun dreaming it.  
    Perhaps it had been she who had started the telepathic link between all their dreams, after all, weaving all the threads of coincidence into a single milieu. Dayna's mournful song had then been absorbed at last into Avon's nightmare, the night he had taken the bath and finally slept after the Bartholomew incident. Had the essence of it just mutated from mind to mind after that until the black sea had been created?  
    Or was there _another_ influence? Something besides their shared experiences, something perhaps... _alien?_ Something else that was manipulating them all?  
     _I want to live. To live. To live._  
    Cally shuddered, despite herself. A golden-skinned alien with her face had nearly devoured her being. Was any of that creature left within her, like psychic residue? Or worse...  
    Within _Avon?_  
     _Make me die. There is nothing else you can make me do._  
    Cally put her more frightening conjectures aside for now.  
    "What you said before was correct," she told Dayna. "This may have all somehow started with me. Inadvertently, my own dream got passed around, I fear. And then it took on a life of its own when we all started adding elements to it, a piece at a time. But you have managed to turn all of this strangeness into something quite wonderful: you've written a _beautiful_ song." And she meant this in all sincerity, smiling back at Dayna who dipped her head in thanks.  
    "The best way to conquer a demon is to say its name," Cally continued. "Or to put it into art. Are you still having the nightmare version of the dream?"  
    "No, but I think..." Dayna gently indicated Tarrant at the other end of the room, still facing away from them. "Someone else may be having the dream now. But I _could_ write a happier ending for the song if I wanted, change its outcome. Maybe that would even help change the nightmares we've all been having in some way. I _do_ have that power, after all." She grinned. "The 'jealous darkness' _can_ be defeated, I think." Dayna seemed fierce in her determination now. Cally could also not fail to see the protective way the younger woman glanced over at Tarrant again.  
  
_From this distance you are calm and pure_  
_Vast to the horizon, moonlight washes over your shore_  
_All is not as it seems_                
     _As I watch you slip in and out of dreams_  
  
    "Tarrant heals quickly, I think," Cally whispered and then she spoke aloud her earlier lament: "Yet another sibling lost."  
    Dayna glowered, her eyes hardening. "To a very real monster. And I _will_ kill Servalan. I swear it." Cally then saw Dayna the Destroyer emerge even as the young woman, like a lioness, clutched the harp that paradoxically produced such beauty.  
    It also was then that Cally's own eyes widened as sudden realization set in: the monster under the waves-- the dark place--  
    The best way to conquer a demon was to say its name. Put it into art. _Yes._  
    "Where's Avon?"  
      
    Dayna watched as an epiphany suddenly seemed to take hold of Cally. "Thank you, Dayna," the Auron woman said and then left the observation deck wearing a stern look of resolve. Alone now, Dayna remained sitting there, thinking about monsters lurking under the waves and how to kill them.  
    All at once, Tarrant's unexpected voice startled Dayna out of her reverie, reminding her that she was in fact not alone in the room. "These stars don't look right. Are you sure we're headed for Calipheron?"  
    Dayna looked up, surprised that Tarrant had finally acknowledged any others were present. "Yes. I haven't heard about any course deviations," she replied.  
    "Who's on watch?" he asked brusquely.  
    "Avon. He's been there for several hours, I believe. In fact, it was supposed to be _my_ watch now but he insisted most _vehemently_ that he take mine as well. I wasn't going to argue."  
    "Hmph," Tarrant muttered, "If it was Vila up there now, I'd go check that something odd wasn't occurring. But Avon would have noticed it by now and done something about it. He must be monitoring peculiarities if he decided to remain on deck and take your turn."  
    "Possibly. But I'll try to enjoy the unexpected free time anyway."  
    They lapsed into silence again.  
    He still had not turned from the observation window to face her. He was in the exact same despondent pose from earlier, arm thrown over the back of the couch where he had been sitting in quiet stellar scrutiny. Dayna began to adjust the pegs of the harp, tuning the strings, in careful preparation for more communication.  
    After a few moments, he finally said in a casual voice, still without looking at her: "How is our _story_ progressing?"  
    Dayna smiled. "I'll play it for you if you'd like. In full."  
    She did. And this time Dayna sang the lyrics as Tarrant continued watching the passing night of space.  
    "Ominous, isn't it?" he muttered when she had strummed the closing chord. She at first thought he was talking about space itself, but realized he was referring to the song. "Is that the end of the story? Does the sea take the man?"  
    "It doesn't have to be. We could come up with a better ending, if you'd like," she suggested, hopeful. "Or... would you rather be alone now, Tarrant?"  
    "Yes," he said quickly. Then: "No."  
     He finally sighed, but still did not turn to face her. "Please. I need distraction. Keep playing."  
    So while he did not help her change the dark ending of "Tidal"--at least, not just yet-- he listened as she decided to play a completely different song. She had called this one "Space is Just a Starry Night".  
    As she played, Tarrant observed out loud once again: "There is _definitely_ something wrong with those stars..."  
                  
    "Avon, it's my watch now. You need sleep."  
    "No. No, I _don't."_  
    Avon and Cally stood glaring at one another. Avon was dressed in severe black leather with silver trim, and there were circles under his eyes. He was in a foul mood but Cally never let this deter her.  
    "It was Vila's watch last and he told me that you sent him away. And Dayna before him. What's happening here that you feel the need to control?"  
    "Nothing. _Nothing_ is happening here."  
    Cally held him in a belligerent stare, a challenge. Avon tilted his head, daring her to contradict him.  
    Finally she asked: "Is it because of the nightmares?"  
    This made him start. He turned and walked a few paces from her. "Ah, it's clear that you're consistently aware of my sleep disturbances. I must be, as you call it, 'projecting' again. At a later time, you must instruct me on how to control this... tendency." He turned to face her. "But to answer your question: _no._ I'm not here because I'm avoiding sleep."  
    "Then _why_ are you here?"  
    He glowered. "You must trust me, Cally. My reasons are sound and I know what I am doing." Each word was as sharp as shards of glass.  
    "And what _is_ it you are doing?"  
    "Apparently having a pointless argument with you. Now I would appreciate your leaving me to my solitude because I _am_ going to maintain this post for the immediate future."  
    "It seems I can do nothing to stop this dilemma," she muttered.  
    "Dilemma?" he repeated, annoyed. "How is my taking responsibility here a _dilemma?"_  
    He now noticed she was holding a piece of paper, and she waited for a glimpse of his usual curiosity when it came to her drawings. For a moment, there did seem to be some mild interest: she could see that he was resisting making an inquiry about it. But some new wariness was preventing this and he glanced away from it with feigned disinterest. Cally had only just completed this new picture and she was determined that she would indeed show it to him, whether he wanted to see it or not.  
    "Avon, I'm having a peculiar notion. Did the ... _alien_ touch your mind when you kissed her?"  
    He gave her a strange look at the segue in the conversation. "Of course she did. As I touched hers to get to you. You and she were linked. Why is this relevant?"  
    "There may be a chance that she somehow entered into you and enhanced whatever psychic capacities you already had. Caused some... instability."  
    She was being very careful now, monitoring his reactions to her words. She could not deny that she felt some sort of presence inside him that did not belong there. Whether it was an implanted thought or something far more malignant, she could not tell. She had even shared it with him in dreams, after all -- felt its allure and its desire to possess and control him. And his desire for it in return was giving it strength, whatever it was.  
    Avon walked away from her again, as if trying to put distance between their shared empathy.  
    "Are you suggesting I'm currently unstable, Cally? Preposterous. I am perfectly in control and lucid. I actually... feel better than I have in quite a long time." These last words were pensive, almost whispered.  
    "Then how do you explain this secrecy, Avon? You've usurped the flight deck, won't tell anyone why. You haven't slept again and I'm getting feelings of fear from you. Does it have anything to do with those codes you were decrypting on the monitors in your room?"  
    She saw him stiffen. "You _saw..."_ His tone began as sharp and accusing, but he abruptly checked himself. For the tiniest fracture of a moment, he looked afraid; then he pulled on a new mask of indignation. "It was only a routine Federation trade message."  
    She prevented herself from sending the searing telepathic message _*Liar!*_ into his brain.  
    "Of course it was," she acquiesced. "After all, they're gibberish to all but yourself." She walked up to him now with slow deliberation. "You had a very particular nightmare the last time you slept, did you not?" She held up her drawing. "Does this look familiar?"  
    She saw him turn pale, his eyes widening so that they resembled those of a dangerous, cornered animal's.  
    "What did you dream, Avon? _Tell me."_  
    "No." Again, swiftly, the mask was in place.  
    The drawing was of a black sea; a black-clad figure that was unmistakably Avon stood on its shore under the double-mooned sky. The  _Liberator_ hung like a silver and emerald ornament over the horizon. And from the sea itself, long tendrils of darkness were extending, reaching with inky, greedy fingers out of the obsidian waves.  
    She reached for his arm but he flung her hand off of him. "Don't touch me, Cally," he snarled with such aggression that Cally stepped back, startled. "Just... leave me _be!"_  
    "Avon, I want to help--"  
    His stab of unchecked empathic fury made her flinch.  
     _"LEAVE ME ALONE!"_  
    Avon usually only raised his voice in rare, necessary occasions when his softer warning growls were not being heeded. This outburst was irregular and Cally knew now something was undeniably wrong. He was throwing up mental barriers against her like iron walls.  
    She retreated from the emotional barricade.  
    "As you wish," she said, her tone taut. She began to turn away but then faced him one last time with a sharp, intrusive telepathic warning:  
     _*Do NOT endanger us.*_  
  
_Is this how we are meant to be?_  
_We are tidal, you and me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tarrant wanted his turn to finally do something, even if it was just to sit with his back to everyone.
> 
> ("Space is Just a Starry Night" is, of course, the name of Dayna's song in "Sarcophagus", which was also written by Tanith Lee.)


	7. A Moon to Guide the Way

    "Make me die. There is nothing else you can make me do."  
     _Oh, but there is, Avon, there is. You want him back. You'll do anything to get him back. I feel your longing and I can reach into your dreams._  
      _It's time Blake and his shadow finally reunited._  
  
    Dayna and Vila watched as Cally strode past their board game. They tried to beckon her to join in but she snapped:  
    "I'm _not_ in the mood."  
    Vila tapped the side of his nose. "Ah. Avon's chased her off the flight deck. I recognize that look of indignation. In my case, it was just relief."  
    "Cally, relax, he's probably just being stubborn. Why don't you enjoy a game with us?" Dayna suggested. "By the way, Tarrant's _finally_ gone off to sleep. I think my music eventually bored him."  
    Cally sighed and managed a quick skeptical smile. "Doubtful it bored him. I think it probably motivated him, as it did me. Soothed him, even."  
    Despite their urging, Cally was by no means in any mood to relax. She felt a belligerence she had not experienced since first coming aboard the _Liberator,_ when she had had to deal with a sarcastic, antagonistic snob named Kerr Avon who had wanted to throw her right back off of it. As she recalled the awkward beginnings of her friendship with the distrustful computer genius, she was aware that her chin was still thrust out in fury from her most recent encounter with him—and that she was grinding her teeth as well. Her audience watched her with calm, amused interest as she paced back and forth in front of them.  
      Another part of her chastised herself for her annoyance: Avon _had_ asked her to trust him, and hadn't she always found his reasoning sound? Up to a point— _yes._ She would have been more accepting of his mysterious commandeering of the flight deck if she had not shared his erratic nightmares and knew that something about his behavior was off-kilter.  
    Yes, Avon had always been the pinnacle of logic and sound decision-making, much to their leader Blake's past gratitude as well as irritation. Avon had offered cold pragmatism to Blake's often wild and grandiose schemes. However, this new behavior of Avon's had an eerie similarity to some of Blake's more imperious moments.  
     She tried to console herself that he usually had a well-thought-out explanation for any decision, always concise and calculated. Most of the time he was also upfront about his plans; Cally assumed that this was out of vanity for his own intelligence.  
    But THIS time... _this time..._  
    "He _yelled_ at me!" she cried. She faced Vila and Dayna with wide-eyed exasperation.  
    Vila shrugged. "He always yells at me." And then he pouted. "Now I don't feel so special anymore."  
    "Well, he was also very short with me," Dayna admitted. "By the time Vila wandered up to take his shift, Avon must have been especially cranky and Vila just made him lose his temper. And then he took it out on you, Cally."  
    "Aw, good to see my abuse is being passed around," Vila muttered.  
    Dayna grinned. "With Tarrant scheduled for the next shift, we'll see if Avon throws _him_ off the flight deck too. Now that should be interesting. Come on, Cally, just have some fun for a little while. We're all hopelessly bored. I've sung myself out today and I don't even have any new ideas for pocket explosives."  
    "A slow day for the Mellanby Space Bombs industry," Vila nodded.  
    Cally rubbed at her forehead. "I'm glad Tarrant's finally getting some sleep. Now there's another stubborn male who's running himself ragged."  
    "Hey!" Vila protested. "Not-so-stubborn male here! You don't have to tell me twice to go to sleep."  
    Dayna added with a knowing grin: "And there's a case here for a stubborn female who's running herself ragged as well."  
    Cally smiled crookedly at them. "Maybe I will play you both a game... but _later._ Frankly, right now, I'm developing a nasty headache. Perhaps I should actually go lie down."  
    "That's how I'd prefer to process my encounters with Avon," Vila approved. "Far away from him, lying on my bunk. With Soma."  
    Dayna rolled her eyes. "Please come back soon, Cally. I don't know how much more banter with Vila I can endure. On the positive side, it might just inspire some new ideas for explosives."  
    "See? I'm a muse!" Vila proclaimed.  
  
    Cally wandered off to her cabin, calmer and even grateful for having encountered the two crew members. Avon's rebuke had indeed shaken her but she was confident she had made the right decision in not sharing with the others her fears about his state of mind. He _was_ behaving in a peculiar fashion, yes—but was he really a danger to them or even to himself? There had been so many times before when they had ignored the warning signs of crew members' erratic behavior. Such incidents often revealed unknown crises were imminent—Gan's malfunctioning limiter chip, for instance—or that detrimental outside forces were at work. Blake, Jenna and of course, herself (many times), had been victims of this. And the whole crew had been terrorized by a creature who had emerged from an alien sarcophagus and stowed away inside an archaic ring.  
    Except Avon. Ever steadfast and logical, he had broken its spell.  
    Again, perhaps she was just being an alarmist, basing all of her uneasiness on a series of interconnected nightmares. True, there was currently a heightened degree of empathy being transferred amongst the crew, resulting in these shared dreams. But was it really a cause for concern? Perhaps that's all it was—just _dreams._  
    Cally's people, the Auronar, had believed in premonitions, however. Though technologically advanced, they were still a spiritual race, and visions shared among a group of people—especially dreams—were not seen as coincidences. Sometimes they were considered symbolic portents of future events.  
    Cally did not want to believe in premonitions but it was still ingrained in her as part of her Auronar belief system, no matter how practical she thought of herself.  
    She had always been more realistic than her immediate family, which included her clone group. She had always favored physical solutions, unlike her nearest clone-sister Zelda's more metaphysical musings. Cally had been chastised for her hotheadedness and her rebellious tendencies which had eventually turned her into an outcast guerilla fighter. It was only after joining the _Liberator_ crew that her survivalist nature was finally tempered. Despite Jenna and Avon's initial distrust of her alienness, Blake had found her indispensable and offered her safety on board the magnificent ship. (The same thing that Avon himself had desired, though he had never admitted it until recently.) Finally, it was here that she had started to find the tranquility she had not known she needed.  
    Her newest, most peculiar aid in refining her telepathic skills was the small, calming sentient life-form that she had rescued from the planet Zonda. This creature had helped her overcome another kind of "Darkness" there.  
    She stroked the Moon Disc now and the stone-shaped creature purred its mental greeting to her; it sensed her agitated state and sent her gentle, soothing waves of empathy.  
    *Am I overreacting?* she asked it, telepathically. *We've all been so emotional lately. So much loss, so many tears, so much suppressed anger and guilt. Maybe nothing sinister is at work, and there is nothing more than one strange dream being passed among us that keeps growing like a traveling campfire tale.*  
    The Moon Disc sent its wordless reassurance—it  spoke in her mind an abstract, pictorial language that somehow she had no trouble understanding. But she knew the Moon Disc held its— _her_ —own secrets that _she_ was still not ready to share with Cally. And this time, the little creature indicated to her that she was not wrong in her suspicions about the disturbance aboard the _Liberator,_ reminding her again of the incident when an other-dimensional force (which they had simply called _The Darkness)_ had managed to possess Orac through the computer's carrier waves. Only with the aid of the Moon Disc colony on Zonda had Cally been able to defeat it.  
    Cally spoke out loud to it: "I'm tired and confused. Perhaps if I just lie down and try to center myself, I can reason this all out." The Moon Disc asked her if she would like assistance and this sounded intriguing to Cally, despite her skepticism. "How are you able to help me?"    
    The Moon Disc indicated that she need only keep _her_ close.  
    So Cally sat on her bed and removed her boots. She then stretched out on it, holding the little disc within both hands folded over her heart. It was warm and smooth as glass. She closed her eyes and began to breathe in her usual practiced rhythm; slow and tidal. She had only learned the proper way to do this once she had abandoned her life as a resistance fighter on Saurian Major in exchange for a new home aboard this ship. The _Liberator_ itself had seemed to aid her transition to a more tranquil state of mind. She softly hummed Dayna's song, singing the lyrics in her mind.  
  
_Breathe in, breathe out_  
_Surge forward, retreat in doubt_  
            _I will be your guide, I will calm your tide._  
  
    It was natural that the destination for her meditation would be the black sea, the dark heart of all their dreaming. This time, however, she was determined to stay within a lucid dream—and the Moon Disc would help guide her and calm her tides like a little moon that she could hold in her hands. Dayna had told her how she had wanted to change the outcome of her song's story, alter the ending; and she herself had hoped to tame the nightmare by physically drawing it on paper. But to transform the dream for everyone else aboard—did she even have that power?  
    Cally had practiced lucid dreaming many times by putting herself into a half-sleep in which she had manipulated what her unconscious experienced. When she had last dreamed of Avon, however, she had only allowed herself to be a witness to his phantasms. Interacting with his powerful dreaming self, it had been difficult to assert herself and she remembered the black tendrils whipping her away from an entangled Avon as he was pulled beneath the ebony waves. His will—his unconscious self—had been too strong for her to interfere in the course of that scenario.  
    But Avon was _not_ asleep now, she reminded herself, determined. At that moment, he was walking the flight deck, keeping his own council and wrapped in his own secrets. So she now attempted a recreation of his nightmare milieu in her own mind—and waited for what was to happen.  
    And then she would _do_ something about it.  
    She inhaled, exhaled, stilled her mind, sought the ravaged shoreline with its inky tide. She held tight to the little Moon Disc and it sent her gentle telepathic waves of encouragement.  
    Finally, she felt it: a cold, wheezing wind that pulled at her shaggy curls. Its howl was shrill and it whistled like some sort of ancient engine. She looked about herself and saw that the sea did not ripple in the wind's onslaught—it still retained its eerie and remarkable smoothness, deceptively solid as volcanic glass. The sky was no longer a coagulated purple and sickly clotted yellow but rather a uniform charcoal-grey. There was cloud-cover now that hid even the brighter, more lantern-like of the two moons: even the moon that had refused to be eclipsed by darkness in the other versions of this dream was now repressed. Neither was there any sign of the majestic _Liberator_ in the sky above the sea.  
    She saw him then, standing off many yards from the creeping unctuous tide. There were small pools of jet-black seawater leading from the surf onto the dull grey sand. It was as if Avon had walked out of the sea and left a trail of liquid darkness in his wake.  
    She stood there in careful perusal. Avon was motionless, staring at the ground before him. He seemed to be dressed entirely in black but this could have just been the last of the the obsidian sea dripping from him. With the shrieking wind grabbing at his own hair, making a disarray of his usually careful brown locks, he was not even aware that Cally was there at all—his entire focus was on what appeared to be shattered chunks of stone at his feet.  
    "Avon?" she called him but her voice was getting lost in the wind, just as before. Did she have enough control to make him hear her this time? She walked up closer to him but he still did not react. He was entranced by what dominated his attention—no, _appalled_ by what lay at his feet. His breathing was labored, his chest heaved and his eyes were wide with what Cally saw was horrified disbelief.  
    Even more careful steps closer. Now the pieces of stone appeared to be a broken statue of some sort. She recognized the sculpted shapes of a human hand, the chunks of a torso, a crushed stone leg. She watched as Avon sank on shaky knees to the sand and picked up what looked like a mask. She saw his head tilt in a sort of weary bewilderment as his mouth formed a soundless word.  
    Though he did not speak it, Cally recognized the potent shape of that name on his lips.  
    She circled him for a better look. Chagrined, she realized she was still nothing more than a ghost in this vision. She looked down at the stone mask he held in both his trembling hands and saw it was a _face_ that had been separated from the rest of the shattered statue. And Cally gasped when she recognized the long, sad features.  
    "Blake," she said aloud.  
    Avon flinched a bit—somehow, this time, he had heard her, as one might hear a voice from another room in a building thought abandoned.  
    Mystified as well as frightened, she bent down beside him. "Oh, Avon," she said in a gentle voice. She understood now, of course. In Avon's mind, Blake was not just dead—he was destroyed. And Avon had come to the awful discovery that Blake was never coming back to him.  
    She stood up then in one swift motion, furious. She stalked away from the kneeling man and the shattered statue. "What does this _mean?"_ she cried aloud. Enough riddles, enough symbols—she demanded answers now.  
    She decided to address what she believed to be the source of it all: "WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?" she screamed to the unseen malignant architect, the demon in the water. She turned a full circle and glared in all directions. "Show yourself," she said to the wind, to the sea gone black. "Stop playing games. Confront me and tell me why you're doing this."  
    The wind wheezed again like someone struggling to laugh. Then Cally turned and saw _her_ —the Alien.  
    Her silken green robes flailed in the wind. She still wore Cally's face— but it was the otherworldly metallic-gold version of it. Her hair was adrift like auburn weeds in water, a strange, elegant doppelganger. She gave her a sweet smile.  
   "Hello, Cally. I've missed you."  
  



	8. What the Water Gave Her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cally confronts a dream-version of the Alien from "Sarcophagus" and wants answers.

    Cally was acquainted with mirror images of herself, of course. As a clone, she was one of many who wore the same face. She did not know the exact number of Callys there had ever been, but despite their identical appearances, she knew that they had not all been of equal personalities and temperaments.  
    Case in point: herself and Zelda.  
    Cally, resentful of her homeworld's neutrality, had gone off to join the resistance on Saurian Major and was subsequently exiled from Auron because of it. Despite this, she had still convinced the _Liberator_ crew to respond to a telepathic distress call from her clone-sister Zelda: a genocidal plague had been released on Auron. Always altruistic, Zelda had thought even the cloned embryos of Servalan—the epidemic's mastermind and the eventual destroyer of Auron's civilization—had been worth saving. This act of attempted heroism had cost Zelda her life and Cally had felt her death like the exploding of a sun, the end of a universe. In the aftermath, she had been overcome by the whole pointlessness of her twin's selfless gesture.  
     _But why, Zelda? Why save the offspring of that monster? Was it worth dying for?_  
    Having lost all psychic links to her people, she had felt despair and desertion. Alone in the universe—that still continued cruelly on despite the catastrophic loss of the Auronar—she was now without the intimate mind-sharing she craved. Now she had become a permanent exile. This harsh isolation had changed when she was given a seductive offer from another telepath who had seemed to understand her plight, an ancient entity who would then wear her face like one of her clone-sisters. This new double tempted her with the peace and belonging she had always desired.  
    And now this resplendent alien, made impossibly whole again, stood before her. Although Cally was aware that they both existed within what was only a controlled dream, it was the first time that she and the being had ever confronted one another face-to-face.  
     During her brief physical incarnation on the _Liberator,_ the Alien had almost succeeded in absorbing Cally, stealing her lifeforce in order to construct a new body for herself. She had waited in limbo for the foretold coming of her "servants"—and especially The One she would claim as her own, The One who would become the clay she needed in which to sculpt her new form. Much to her delight, the bereaved Cally, at her most susceptible, finally boarded her coffin/ship and became The One. Cally's emotional need was too great and the creature's invitation too intoxicating, too magnetic: she preyed on the telepath at her loneliest and Cally willingly made an offering of herself. It had been far too easy. The Auron missed the shared connections with her own people, craved a joining of mind and spirit, even if it meant the loss of her own individuality. And she was ashamed of this hunger. The Alien, however, offered her an exquisite transformation—and Cally, enraptured, succumbed to her.  
     _Yes—this is what I could be. Forever._  
    So much buried emotion had caused her imprisonment. But it had also saved her, as the most emotionless crew member was able to use it to free her.  
    Cally had not stood before this actual physical copy of herself until the final moments of the creature's death: she had watched it wither into a cadaver and then vanish before Avon's impassive scrutiny. She had not seen the Alien at its most powerful, most beautiful—until now, with both of them here together on this nightmare shore.  
    Here was the memory of the Alien recreated from Avon's mind, the psychic image passed on to Cally herself when Avon had kissed the elegant, greedy, deadly creature and subsequently tricked it. Avon had then shown the trapped Cally an image of herself that was unbelievable, fantastical: be-gowned and ethereal, fiery-haired and golden-skinned, more beautiful than her simple Auron self could ever dream of being. While she was still half-absorbed and vulnerable, Avon had confirmed her allure even as he betrayed it:  
     _You're so beautiful when you're angry._  
    And then he had pulled her free.  
    Before the dark oozing waves of this eerie sea, Cally finally faced what she had almost become. Its (her) smile was bewitching and its (her) eyes shone with welcome. The Alien's diaphanous green and scarlet garments floated with the same ghostly slowness as her long auburn locks, and her gilded face shone with the radiance of a lost sun even in this bleak charcoal-colored landscape.  
    How could this exquisite being be the monster under the waves?  
    "You're not surprised I'm here," said the Alien in a voice that sounded as if it was unfurling like tendrils of smoke. "You and Avon have both retained this much of me in your minds. I've managed to live on in this fashion, for just a little bit longer."  
    "To torment us," Cally said. "For revenge."  
    The golden creature tilted her head, sweetly puzzled. "What could I possibly accomplish in a place such as this?" She gestured at the obsidian waves. "I'm only a creature of the unconscious now, working with the meager materials given me. This is my current canvas." She shook her head at the desolate shoreline, the ashen sky. "I would not have chosen it. I find it horrid. But your Avon insists on this scenario. Why is that, do you think?"  
    "He is not my Avon," Cally replied.  
    "Isn't he?" smiled the Alien. Both of them looked off to the near distance where Avon knelt, holding the stone face of Roj Blake. The rest of Blake lay in pieces in the cold gray sand before him.  
    "Why are you doing this to him?" Cally asked.  
    "I am not doing anything at all. This is of his own making."  
    "You're the one manipulating all of our dreams. You've given all of us this same nightmare as punishment."  
    "Have I? As I recall, you were the one who started this cycle long before you were ever fortunate enough to encounter my sarcophagus. You had a pleasant memory of a sea full of roses—and after Auron, you kept this vision close, held it in your mind, vivid as one of your drawings, yearning for it even as you projected it outward using your own psychic prowess. You did not realize you were doing this, of course. There was a lonely person on the shore of this dream who wanted so much. Did you not realize that it was _you?_  
    "This sea in your dream reached the girl who sang songs and the boy who flew battleships and they turned it into a story that became a song. Then the song was absorbed into a man's self-recriminating nightmare—and you felt the man's pain when you joined your mind with his. After all, you did have this connection with him— because of _me."_ The Alien gave her a reasonable look. "When you and Avon shared your minds, it was inevitable that the rest of your crew would also receive the psychic residue. I ask you, how am I to blame for that?"  
    "I know you implanted something else inside his mind. It had to have happened when he kissed you. I can sense it now, deep within his subconscious—something hidden and dangerous that does not belong there."  
    "Ah," the Alien smiled then, beginning to stride with elegant grace before her, hands behind her back. "You mean he's been sent something like a _signal,_ perhaps? Would this be what you've discovered within his psyche that seems so wrong?"  
    "No... _yes."_ Cally shook her head, confused now. "I don't know. An outside source, yes. There's a dark place within him, something that's manipulating him."  
    "This is what you believe? And you still think it's me?" The golden being laughed. "Oh, Cally, I know of its existence, of course. It lives _here."_ She gestured to the expanse of dusky sea. "But I am not its source. I am merely its tenant, if you like. This is where he's put me."  
    Cally was struggling now to understand. "You... you didn't create this."  
    "No," said the Alien in a sweet, patronizing voice. "But it gives me a playground. It gives me toys."  
    "And in our dreams, we're your puppets."  
    "If you like. But all the raw materials for me to play with were already here. And that dark place you discovered within him is very receptive to ideas— _influence."_  
    "What do you mean?"  
    "Dear Avon is on a mission," explained the Alien. "He's fixated on an idea—a hope—a quest. Something—or perhaps someone?—gave it to him as a gift. And this darkness to which I now belong is fighting him, telling him he is unworthy of this... _gift."_  
    "You mentioned a signal," Cally said with trepidation. "Will you tell me what it is? Or will you keep feeding me riddles? I still believe you're the cause of all of this. After all, you had wanted to kill us all—especially him."  
    "Not true. I never kill superfluously, Cally—I've said that before. I take what I need but I also reward those who assist me. And I must take the opportunity to thank you now. You've given me a new game and this pleases me."  
    Cally's hands balled into fists. "It does not please _me._ Stop this."  
    The Alien gave a condescending smile. "Again, I am doing nothing but standing here before you, talking to you."  
    Cally snarled. "You're helping whatever it is—this 'signal' as you call it—twist whatever emotions he _does_ have up in knots. And this is affecting the whole crew."  
    "Haven't you been listening, you foolish girl? He does that quite well on his own without my assistance." The Alien's voice sounded echoing and distant, now, as if it was emerging from a long tunnel. "Why are you so concerned with _his_ wretched emotions? Only because they've been spilling over into your own sleep, disturbing your own dreams? You credit me with too much power, Cally. _You_ are the one wielding all the power here now. You... and _he."_ She glanced past Cally to the gray shoreline. "Sadly, he does seem a bit distracted now."  
     The stone face was crumbling into dust in Avon's hands.  
    Bewildered, Cally demanded, "How did you manage to remain inside both of us? I saw you die—permanently. Avon made sure of that."  
    The creature laughed. "I'm only a psychic imprint, a ghost. But it is enough for me and I can still cause sufficient damage in this state. I can also call forth the beast from the waves—it's quite easy when you're given permission." As if to demonstrate this, the sea stirred then, boiling like ebony oil; Cally waited for the black tendrils to emerge from it and seek her out—but it became subdued once more as the Alien gazed again at the kneeling figure of Avon. "You're seeing me now as he did. And because he reached inside of me to get to you, he left a door open. This is how this aspect of me was able to remain. And he has invited you in through this door as well." She gave Cally her most regal smile now. "You know, you really should be thanking _me."_  
    "Thanking you?" Cally retorted with a laugh. "For playing your malicious games with us as we slept? You're delusional."  
    Her ethereal twin shook her head. "You do not understand. The door was opened for you, Cally. I gave you a gift—I gave you _him."_  
    This boast startled Cally. Another desperate look at Avon revealed that he still showed no awareness of this surreal conversation; his attention was only for the gray sand running between his fingers.    
    "He is not yours to give," Cally said with a soft growl.  
    The Alien made a disparaging noise that was almost musical. "Stupid Auron, I brought the two of you together."    
    "We were already... friends. That was not your doing."  
    "Wasn't it, you foolish girl?" The creature now looked impatient, angry. "Do you think he would have paid you any attention otherwise? You—little clone daughter of a dead civilization?"  
    "No, I don't think he would have. And that's never what I wanted anyway."  
    "Isn't it?" the Alien smiled with saccharine pity. "His heart only belongs to two others, neither of which is you. You are still _alone,_ Cally. You will _always_ be alone. Now and forever."  
    The Alien, having once tried to absorb her psyche, knew best where to wound her— but Cally gave her a sly smile now. "I know what you're doing and it won't work again. You also tried this with Avon as well, but you're only able to attack him in dreams where he's at his weakest. You contributed to _this—"_ She gestured at the growling black waves "—as a torture, playing on his guilt. But as you said, now I'm the one who's in control."  
    The Alien hissed at Cally: "You _fool._ I told you I am not the real puppeteer here. I've only released his hunger. He has a door of his own which he's kept safely locked and behind this door are terrible things, things you would never expect of your dear Avon." She sneered.  
    Cally could not help a growing sense of dread. Nevertheless, she glared back at the being. "I don't believe you."  
    "Believe of him the best: what you see as a black sea is his inner self—his soul, if you wish to call it that."  
    "You are wrong. This is just a manifestation of his self-reproach." The ridiculous realization came to her that she sounded like a psychoanalyst; nevertheless, she continued, as foolish as the Alien said she was. "And there is love in this... _sea._ I know this. I have seen it."  
    The Alien sighed. "Idiot. Again, it is not love for _you."_  
    Cally winced, despite herself. "No. No, of course not."  
    She stood there, the wind cruelly pulling at her shaggy hair; she felt her eyes beginning to smart. She knew, of course, that she and Avon were only affectionate friends, companions in empathy—but had the Alien guessed at what she did not want to admit to herself? Had Cally actually allowed herself to fall in love with this dispassionate, difficult man who could never return such a sentiment? It was what she had tried to prevent, after all, and she was far too intelligent to want otherwise.  
     She knows your emotions—don't let her taunt you. You have the power here, remember that. _Another moon has come into this sea's orbit and it will light the way,_ sang Dayna.  
  
_But the jealous darkness will continue to roam_  
_It wants the shadow for its own._  
  
_It waits for its chance._  
  
    The jealous darkness could be defeated: Dayna had said this.  
    "Yes," she said to the being. "Then I should thank you for what you gave me."  
    The golden creature offered her an elegant smile again. "Well now, then I've won after all."  
    Cally started. Astonished, she repeated the Alien's words carefully in her mind.  
     _Well now._  
    She gave the alien a shrewd smile of her own when realization took hold. She stepped closer to the creature, this imperious gilded statue, who stared back at her and waited.  
    "But you see," Cally told her, tilting her head to study this being who had stolen her face, "you haven't really won." She stood close enough now to reach out and take hold of the Alien's arms, much to the being's sudden confusion. "I'm actually the one here who's won. And I know who you are now."  
    Swiftly, Cally leaned forward and took the Alien's face between her hands, pressing her lips to the golden mirror. She fitted her body against this dangerous version of herself, but never released her lips. There was a howl of protest from the winds about them; the black sea roared and churned in fury, as the waves began to coil and advance upon her. But with her kiss, she held the creature with relentless determination. The oily tentacles that had formed to ensnare her were useless now, powerless to separate them. This body with which she was converging was familiar to her now because it was her own, stolen from her sorrow. But just as she expected, it was now beginning to transform into something else.  
     _Change the outcome— you have that power._  
    Her kiss locked the other in place; its sorcery was lingering, transmogrifying. The body she melted herself against began to fill out, reshape itself, smooth down in some places and harden in others. To gain control over the demon, she then had to say its name.  
    She released the other's face, letting her lips finally fall away as she opened her eyes and stepped back to observe her work.  
     _"Avon,"_ she said in a softly triumphant voice.  
    The face before her was no longer a gilded reflection of her own. It was not even a woman's face anymore. The being she had kissed had become decidedly male and now was the twin of the man who was still a distance away, kneeling in the sand.  
   This was a very different version of him.  
    A new Avon looked back at her with astonished brown eyes. It was his skin this time that shone metallic gold; his hair was longer, unkempt, a burnished copper. He was dressed in something much like a scarlet doublet with black trousers and boots; his sleeves were full and trimmed in silver. A short, elegant brocade cape was thrown over his shoulder. He looked like a prince from old Terra, Cally thought; and she was mesmerized. He was a male version of the Alien.  
    "You're... _beautiful,"_ she gasped. Unthinking, she reached for his hand and pressed a kiss into the golden palm. With great curiosity, she then touched his long auburn hair, sweeping it from his brow for a better look at the familiar eyes in such a bewitchingly altered countenance. He stared back at her with a type of incredulity.  
     _Well now._ She had found him after all.  
    Did I call this new creature forth out of what was left of the Alien's consciousness? she wondered. Astounded at what she had conjured, she laid a hand against his gilded face, sighing. "Were you the monster under the waves? Or were you the black sea itself?"  
    He did not answer and his expression was strange, even plaintive.    
    She turned then to look at their surroundings, which had also been transformed. There was no more fierce, mocking wind assaulting her—only a more playful breeze that tossed her erratic brown curls and pushed the hair from this new Avon's brow. The sea was no longer black as ink—it had reverted to the rose algae tide of Cserveitir, more vivid than her memories of it could ever have been. The sky was painted a creamy honey and coral, with the blush of dawn.  
    The princely, alien Avon still did not speak; he had not yet taken his studious eyes off of Cally, as if awaiting her next decision for his existence.  
    Cally thought of Dayna's song then and of the man who had lost his shadow.  
  
   _...He will want it back._  
     _To put right all his wrongs and all that he lacks._  
          _The moon pulls its mask over the face of the sea._  
  
    She looked over at the other despondent Avon kneeling in the sand; his head was lowered and he remained quite still. Could Blake's shadow live on without the man himself?  
    Cally tilted her head, arching a brow. "And what are you now?"  
    The alien Avon then spoke for the first time in response to her thoughts. "I'm his monster," he said, indicating the other Avon with a slight thrust of his chin. "He will want me returned to him."  
    "If you've been causing all this darkness, are you manufactured from his guilt?"  
    The golden Avon winced. "This is your manifestation this time, Cally. You separated me from him in order to take control here." He pointed to the dawn sky where the ghosts of two moons made hazy spheres above the rose sea. "The second, brighter moon, the one that calms the tides—that's _you."_  
    "I don't have that much power," Cally protested.  
    "That's also what _she_ claimed." He took her hand this time and kissed it in reverence. "Oh, but you do have great power. You haven't yet utilized its full potential." He nodded to the horizon then. "I can have many shapes in his dreams but you created this one out of what was left of the creature who nearly destroyed you."  
    Yes, Cally thought: he was the Avon-version of that mysterious, covetous creature. Avon had kissed the Alien, stolen her power, watched her disintegrate into dust—and her psychic remnants found a home in Avon's dreams, merging with him, creating nightmares to punish him. And Cally herself had shared them, inadvertently passing them on to the other crew members. Her dreams of lonely shorelines and ebbing tides had become his chaotic storms and seas of despair and self-loathing.  
    She touched this alien Avon's chest, feeling for a heartbeat beneath the brocaded doublet: she found it. It was so easy not to be frightened of this pleasing form she had given Avon's demon.  
     "You're just a dream-symbol. You've been making us all lose sleep and it's about time you left us alone."  
    She turned her head to study the other Avon in the distance. The pieces of the shattered Blake statue were now just powder that the tide was pulling away from him. Avon fell forward in a bow of failure, head lowered, arms stretched before him in the wet mud.  
    She stepped away from the new gilded version of Kerr Avon, studying him in all his metallic beauty and elegance. "You're still a piece of her—the alien who wanted to steal the _Liberator_ and make a copy of my body."  
    "I'm a piece of Avon, as well as a piece of yourself. You've just eradicated all that was left of that... _other."_  
    "But that's why you need to go: you're still an echo of her. You're doing neither of us any good—and you're interfering in the dreams of the entire crew. You're a dark manifestation of all of our guilt as survivors."  
    He took her hand and caressed it; she did not pull it back—not just yet. He looked stricken.  
    "Please don't send me away." His voice was flat, his anguish restrained.  
    Cally shook her head. "I must. Even if it costs me... _him."_ She looked over at the other Avon kneeling by the rose sea; his fingers made trails in the sand like claw marks. "I've never been under the illusion that Avon could return my feelings. We are only friends, out of comfort, out of convenience—and it's been quietly wonderful. But it won't progress any further." Her eyes filled with tears. "So you must go, despite what we've shared here. You tried to punish him with darkness and I can't allow that any longer. Return to the sea—you are not part of us any longer."  
    His eyes, still so brown in that burnished mask of a face, widened in disbelief. "Cally."  
    "No," she said. "No more games."  
    He put his golden hand on her face now, searching it for a reprieve. Not finding it, he withdrew it, giving a slow, resigned nod.  
    "You prefer the shadow." He looked at his rival who was not even aware of this conversation. "I— _he_ will betray you all, you know."  
    "Perhaps," Cally said.  
    "Cally—"  
    But she turned her back on this golden manifestation and began to walk toward the other broken, black-clad form at the water's edge. When she glanced back over her shoulder, the alien Avon was gone.  
    She wiped her eyes and sighed.  
    The sky was clear now, the sea was full of blossoms. Both moons were pale discs hanging above the horizon, the smaller one more luminescent and persistent.  
     _The second, brighter moon, the one that calms the tides—that's you._  
    She had changed the story.  
    But could she change the reality? Or were these still only veiled premonitions?  
    She made to kneel beside Avon to try once more to speak to him; however, she paused. There seemed to come a voice from the breeze—no, it was coming from the floral tide. It sounded almost like the colossal ship's computer, Zen.  She looked up into the sky for the missing _Liberator_ and there was still no sign of it. Then she distinctly heard it again: Zen was saying in an odd, lowered voice:  
    +There is a way.+  
    Was it her imagination or was this strange new voice of Zen's almost human?  
    It had shifted and sounded almost like Avon.  
  
    Avon, who had been pacing the flight deck, stood with abrupt stillness: a sudden feeling of loss swept over him like an alien wind. He tried to relegate it to being the result of sleep deprivation. Presently, though, the sensation dissipated.  
    He sighed. He felt a strange regret, not knowing why.  
  
    Cally opened her eyes, pulling herself out of the guided dream. The little Moon Disc was still clasped between both hands, held to her breast. Without getting up, she turned her head a bit on the pillow, letting her eyes drift over the drawings tacked to the walls near her bed. She had drawn more views of the rose-algae sea for herself, as well as the waterfall on Cserveitir, to replace the artwork she had given Avon. She assessed the new serene landscapes and smiled.  
    She knew what Avon was doing now, of course—and why. And she would keep it her secret as well. She would feign ignorance, play along with Avon's commandeering of the ship as long as possible, hiding how much she understood, how much she had already guessed.  
    He had gotten some sort of signal (the gift) and it was Blake, of course. He had somehow found Blake and he was taking the _Liberator_ to him.  
    She sat up and ran her fingers through her unruly curls. Perhaps now was as good a time as any to take up Vila and Dayna's invitation to play board games. She would wait and pretend surprise when Avon finally made his revelation, whenever that happened. She knew one of crew—she was sure it would be Tarrant—would demand the truth from him before long.  
    But why hide it, Avon? Why is it so dangerous for us to know what you're doing, where you're going? She was chagrined that he not even trusted her with an explanation for his drastic actions. He was obsessed, yes, and like her, he had also received a seductive invitation. Whatever the nature of the signal he had received was, perhaps he still sensed potential danger; he would not be Avon if he did not distrust something that seemed too good to be true. And perhaps his protective nature was at work, as well—too much knowledge put them all at risk, not just himself. But he would never admit so much to them.  
    She only hoped the end result was not a shattered statue.  
    It was then that she felt a small telepathic summoning. In its peculiar, alien way, the Moon Disc bade her: _Take me with you._  
    *Why, my friend?*  
     _I will be much safer with you,_ the little creature implied, not in words, but in the abstract empathy that acted as its "language". _And you will be safer with me._  
    Cally was puzzled but she dismissed her sudden unease. What was the Moon Disc conveying? Did it also get premonitions?  
    "All right," she told it aloud, or rather "her"—she had decided, after all, to give the small orphaned lifeform a gender. She slipped its flat, stone-like shape into her tunic pocket. "Are you comfortable there?"  
     _Yes,_ "she" affirmed. _Warm. Safe. Together. I will protect you._  
    Cally gave a slight frown. "I'm glad then. But what are you protecting me from?"  
    "She" did not reply. Instead, only the idea of "protection" was again communicated.  
    Puzzled, Cally sighed but let the matter pass for now."Let's go sit with the others while we wait this out."  
    She pulled on her boots. Remembering Zen's voice from the dream, she was disturbed that the ever-constant _Liberator_ had been missing from the sky above the sea in the most recent version of the dream. Had it sailed on and left her behind on the shore? Did that small detail mean anything significant at all? She shrugged to herself and decided it didn't matter: the sea had changed back, the thing under the waves had been identified and dismissed, hadn't it?  
  
On the flight deck, Zen intoned: +There is a way.+  
"Show me," said Avon, and the computer did just that, startling him.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ended up having an unintentional Tam Lin vibe to it.  
> The title is from the name of a Frida Kahlo painting, _What the Water Gave Me._ It's also a song by Florence  & the Machine (with its bonus delicate harp line) which I thought was a good soundtrack while I was writing this chapter. ;)


	9. The Mousetrap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The events of "Terminal".

    *Avon, what have you done?*  
    Stardust and space debris: that was what was left. They watched the skies fall.  
  
    Earlier:  
    Avon prowled the flight deck alone. His only company was Zen, and it was only Zen who knew the reason for what he was doing and why he was doing it.  
    It had been _his_ voice—that wonderful, sonorous, infuriating voice. When he had entered in the final decrypted code, the full, complete auditory portion of the message had opened like a prize. What then manifested (and was thus verified) was warm and rich and resonant—a  voice he had so loved and sometimes hated.  
    Blake spoke to him of a wonderful discovery that he needed to share, riches he had found. He spoke of a brand new life. And he asked Avon to join him.  
   _Avon, I am here. We can become invincible, you and I. Come to me._  
    Avon sat down, disoriented and weary. Strangely, he found himself confiding quietly to the colossal hexagonal screen that was Zen. "Would that I were an emotionless computer like yourself and be forever free of human sentiment." He rubbed at his brow, then his eyes. "It would have been better if I had been like you: some sort of organic-based artificial intelligence. If I could be changed into one, have all feeling eradicated, it would be the perfect existence, I believe."  
    He sighed. He desperately needed sleep, but he could not let the _Liberator's_ course be deviated. Not if Blake was waiting for him, wherever they were going, wherever Blake _was._  
    To his astonishment, there was the whirring electronic thunk that signaled Zen replying to an inquiry. The usual booming volume of the computer's voice had softened to match Avon's conversational tone. And it was eerie as hell.  
    +Information: There is a way.+  
    Startled by this unsolicited answer, Avon looked up.  
    "Zen?"  
    +Information: There is a way for an organic being to become an artificial intelligence.+  
    The lights whirled in spirals about Zen's massive screen and then the hexagon changed to a complete blue. Avon had never seen this happen before. Zen continued in its strange new mellowed tone:  
    +It has been done before. And this procedure can be performed again.+  
    Avon stood up slowly and stood before the monstrous screen. New patches of golden light began to dance across a sky of blue. "Zen...?"  
    Avon wondered if there was perhaps a ship malfunction. He was about to ask for a diagnostics check when Zen said:  
    +This unit has... _I..._ know it has been done before.+  
    Zen's voice did something he had never heard it do: it faltered. And Zen had also referred to itself as _I._ Avon stood very still.  
    He asked slowly, carefully, "Zen, are you functioning at full capacity? Were the coordinates I entered corrupted? Has your programming been compromised...?"  
    +Information: all systems are functioning within normal parameters. And negative: this computer has not been compromised. This is ... my information for you, Kerr Avon. This is... _who I am.+_  
    It sounded tired, as tired as he was, and somehow even... human.  
    Avon's blood suddenly felt like ice in his veins. Standing before what served as the computer's colossal face with widened, incredulous eyes, Avon spoke now very softly: "Tell me."  
    +It will be sent... I ... will send the relevant information to your personal monitor.+  
    Avon went pale. So it was a secret that would be revealed only to himself. He walked over to the console and consulted the monitor, his eyes flitting back and forth as he took in the impossible data that was being fed to him. When he had finished reading, he rose unsteadily from the seat, his heart hammering against his rib cage as he walked to the center of the flight deck.  
    "Zen," he said quietly, "forgive me. I did not know."  
    The singular blue color began to fade from Zen's screen, transitioning back to umber. +This computer was once humanoid like yourself. It had chosen the procedure which resulted in this hybrid existence.+  
    No more "first person". No more "I".  
    This was too much for Avon to process and he turned his back to the vast screen; Zen reverted back to its usual marbled sepia, the bands of gold, red and blue continued to flicker, dancing nervously, as if hopeful of acceptance.  
    Am I going mad? Avon thought. This was unprecedented. When the trio comprised of himself, Blake, and Jenna had first taken the abandoned _Liberator_ and passed the deadly security tests, Zen had introduced itself to them, and most specifically to the designated pilot Jenna. It had seemed to meld its consciousness with Jenna and Avon had never inquired further into just how far that joining had progressed. With Jenna now lost along with Blake, he could only surmise that the computer had become... lonely.  
    Only now, Blake was no longer lost. And Zen was...  
    Zen had taken his admission as an invitation to share of itself. _Himself._ Zen was sentient. And he was reaching out to Avon.  
    How could this be? The room felt as it was spinning.  
    (So... it _could_ be done.)  
     _Blake, I am coming for you. And this time I will tell you—_  
    He stood there, overcome, turned away from even Zen now. What must he do?  
    He covered his face with his hands.  
  
    From space, Terminal was a strange, oblong planet, ovoid and jewel-like with its copper landmasses and turquoise seas. It did not belong here—it was like the ghost of a planet manifesting in an impossible place.  
    Cally felt a chill upon seeing it on the viewscreen for the first time.  
    She had felt the Moon Disc calling to her again before she had left her cabin. It— _she_ —begged to come with her once more. _Keep me close,_ it  pleaded. And so Cally scooped the little creature up and placed it unobtrusively into her pocket.  
    *This will not be safe for you,* she told it.  
    It told her in its peculiar wordless language that it would not be safe for her either.  
    This was the first indication that something terrible was on the horizon. She could almost feel the malevolent tendrils re-emerging from a black sea, greedy and grasping, as she and Tarrant decided to follow Avon down to the surface of Terminal and trail him like ghosts on his mad quest.  
    She had thought her creeping sense of foreboding had at last retreated when she had altered the outcome of their dreams. No—this time the residue of dread had crawled from their collective nightmares as if out of the same murky water, taking hold of their ship in the guise of Kerr Avon, and putting him down on this improbable planet.  
     She remembered how Avon had faced the Alien to save her and now it would be the missing Blake's turn to receive his stalwart attention. The rest of the crew still did not know what, or _whom,_ it was that he sought—with the possible exception of Zen. But Zen was only a computer, after all, and took no sides. Presumably, it had done nothing to alter Avon's belief that Roj Blake was somewhere down on that misbegotten world.  
    Cally again felt the phantasmagorical winds of the black sea that she thought she had finally banished. The _Liberator_ should not be here in this empty solar system of Delta 714. And neither should Terminal, for that matter.  
    There was too much wrongness here.  
    Avon, pragmatic, not prone to risking the ship, was gambling with their lives now. Was this then a premonition? The ominous lines from Dayna's song came unbidden to her again as she reached into her pocket to touch the reassuring shape of the Moon Disc.  
      
   _But the jealous darkness will continue to roam_  
   _It wants the shadow for its own._  
                  _It waits for its chance._  
  
    So it would be here then, Cally knew. This was where all roads took them.  
   What frightened her was that Avon might be willing to become death itself again for the sake of Blake.  
  
    As they searched the surface of Terminal together, Tarrant would later tell Cally that Avon had almost— _almost—_ confided in him. Perhaps it had just been out of weariness or fear of failure, but all the other man had managed to say was something about receiving messages before Zen had interrupted him with a confirmation. Then Avon's eyes had looked simultaneously relieved and even joyous—and he no longer needed Tarrant, and promptly tried to dismiss him.  
    She wondered if it had been a possible moment of weakness on Avon's part and nothing more.  
    Cally knew that Avon resented Tarrant for usurping Blake's place aboard the _Liberator._ Tarrant was not Blake, for certain: though tall and curly-haired, he was impetuous, impatient, and never diplomatic in the sometimes foolhardy way that Blake had been. Still quite young, there was too much Federation arrogance left in him. Cally had been horrified to see the lack of trust in the younger man confirmed when Avon, with cold, clinical fury, had held a gun against Tarrant when the younger man had demanded to know why they were en route to a planet that should not exist.  
    "Now— _get out of my way."_  
      Nothing would deter this obsession. Thinking of the green tunic on the back of the chair in his cabin, Cally alone knew the reason for Avon's irrational secretiveness.  
    *Avon.*  
    He had snapped a poisonous glare at her, a warning for her as well.  
     _Cally—GET out of my head._  
    Standing on the desolate surface of Terminal now, Cally was not just chilled by the manufactured winds that howled about the frozen landscape of this constructed world; they seemed to emanate from unconscious memories of another impossible place, a metamorphosing sea. A man's obsessions given a landscape.  
    Despite his death threats, she and Tarrant had followed Avon down to the surface of this inhospitable planet. She now broke her silence and spoke to Tarrant as they searched for Avon who in turn searched for Blake. The eerie heartbeat of Terminal, the artificial world, seemed to measure their steps.    
    "So... he considers Blake that much of a friend to put us all at risk? Is he that ashamed of his love for him that he can't even tell us why he's done all this?" Tarrant scoffed. _Sentiment breeds weakness. Let it get a hold of you and you are dead._ Or so Avon had tried to convince them all as well as himself.  
    Cally sighed. "That may be it. Blake still has a hold over him and he hates himself for it."  
     _I don't need any of you. I don't want you with me. I don't want you following me._ He had then looked directly at Cally. _Anyone who does follow me, I'll kill them._  
     _*Liar.*_  
    Only she and Avon had heard her telepathic reply. They had locked eyes and it was then that he realized that she _knew._  
  
    This was just another dream, wasn't it?  
    It felt like a dream. Nothing felt real about it, least of all the artificially-created world on which he stood, searching for his lost antagonist and lover. He followed the cues he was given, the tasks to be performed; he progressed through the frigid wind, searching, his own heartbeat matched by the man-made planet's weird pulse. And finally, he came to a stark utilitarian bunker, isolated in the near tundra-like wilderness.  
    Here, then. It _must_ be here. This is where he _had_ to be.  
    As instructed, he climbed down a ladder into the underground compound and eventually found a peculiar, monochrome room with empty human molds displayed on walls. A medical unit? The heartbeat of the world was more muted inside the bunker even as his own increased when he found a teleport bracelet on a laboratory tray. A sigh escaped him as he grasped it, realizing whose it was, and he turned hungrily to a nearby monitor.  
    The face instantly appeared on a screen before him, the same handsome, smug, maddening face that he remembered from Star One. He read the words on the monitor rapidly, breathlessly.  
     _Blake._  
    He grinned, keeping his elation in check. "Blake is alive," he purred.  
    Here. Now... _where?_  
  
    And then a blinding light... Sharp pain in the palm of his hand like an insect bite.  
    He fell unconscious. He existed for awhile in a brief dreamless state where only the ridiculous words of a song he had once heard drifted through his sleeping mind. An eerie melody contrasted with the dull drumming of the planet:  
      
             _Breathe in, breathe out_  
             _Surge forward, retreat in doubt_  
               _I will be your guide, I will calm your tide_  
  
               _Is this how we are meant to be?_  
                 _We are tidal, you and me._  
  
    He regained consciousness on a silver bed.  
    He was not alarmed by this predicament, not even by the small wound on the palm of his hand. (Had something struck him? He did not remember.) Perhaps this sudden unconsciousness had been the result of all his sleep deprivation. Remembering his task, his _quest,_ he strode about the room, found a door, followed a corridor and glided along it, somehow sensing the way.  
    Yes. _Here._  
      
     A medical chamber now—a body on a table, draped in white.  
    There. _There!_  
    The face Blake wore now was not the face he remembered: bearded and unconscious, Roj Blake was tethered to a life support machine. Avon had never seen him so vulnerable and instantly wanted to rip those tubes and wires out of his body and cover it with himself. But once more, his reactions were strange, slowed down, dreamlike; he was an insect wading through amber. He said Blake's name and the beloved eyes finally opened.  
    Avon drew in a breath at the smile. His first impulse was to reach for him, touch his face, stroke that new thick growth of beard, clasp one of his big hands—but his body had frozen into impassivity and his voice remained cool and monotone, even at the sight of the welcoming grin.  
    He wanted to cry: _I came so far—I followed all your directions—Tell me what I need to do._  
    He needed to get Blake out of this place, whatever it took. His reflexes remained sluggish, even as Blake told him to _go,_ that others would find him. (The guards in the corridor he had seen? How had Blake even managed to send him messages if he was always being monitored? He would ponder all this later.)  
    "I know where to find you," he said simply.  
    He was almost afraid to leave, as if upon his return there would only be an empty bed. They would remove Blake—take him from him once more. He finally managed to slip into the corridor... and was promptly ambushed into unconsciousness once more.  
    ...When he awoke, he was surrounded by figures in silver who dragged him into something akin to a throne room where a begowned and beautiful Servalan lounged before him. And now his predicament had become quite clear, as was his folly.  
     _Oh, it's happening so nicely,_ the alluring nightmare-Servalan had once said to him, when he had fallen asleep in a bath. _You've done this to yourself. We've only helped a little._  
    Black tendrils encircling him, caressing him, imprisoning him. Words on a computer screen:  
    KERRAVONKERRAVONKERRAVONKERRAVON...  
    Nightmares and signals intertwined to pull him here, to this place, to this trap. Servalan had chosen the bait well. And in exchange for Blake, she wanted the _Liberator._  
      
    Cally knew that this was no longer a dream.  
   Say the demon's name and you have power over it. _Servalan._  
    The demon had been lying in wait, weaving her illusions; she had taken total, absolute control over them. Cally and Tarrant had been captured by Servalan's guards and pulled into this chamber where Avon was lying overpowered on the floor with a gun and a sugar-sweet smile of triumph aimed at him. Cally could feel Tarrant seethe with fury and resentment; oh, how he hated Avon at that moment. It should have been obvious, of course—Servalan was behind everything, as omnipresent as the stars themselves. Fearing her deposition as President of the Federation and seeking an invincible fleet of warships in order to secure her power, she had concocted this scheme, had baited Blake's shadow and reclined in comfort as her prey was brought before her. Terminal was an elaborate mousetrap, a maze through which her favorite laboratory specimen was made to run. And when he had surrendered to her the prize she had sought most, she let the killing words fall:  
    _Blake is dead._  
    Two things would shatter irreparably on this day.  
    The demon had emerged from the water and the lonely shadow faced it and stood... and stood and stood. It might go on standing there for the rest of eternity. And Cally, standing beside Avon, saw entire universes implode within a pair of anguished brown eyes.  
    As Servalan outlined her deception, revealing that she was the architect of the arcane messages received by Avon, there came a surge of desolation like the crash of waves behind a stoic face. And there was a challenge remembered. _Make me die. There is nothing else you can make me do._  
    Except betray them all and the very ship itself for Blake's ghost—which is what Avon had done. And he could not meet their eyes now.  
    _You made it easy because you wanted to believe._  
    Servalan had taunted him with this before she had teleported to her prize, their magnificent alien _Liberator_ , which had also been their home. Cally felt Avon begin to shut down, a broken machine now. Vila and Dayna would later tell her of Zen's slow death caused by a cloud of corrosive fluid particles that Avon had flown them through to reach Terminal. Cally now saw something similar happening to Avon and it was terrifying.  
    He at first walked away from them and stood with his back to them. She felt waves of shame, self-recrimination and thousands of particles of unidentifiable emotion eating away at his own stolid hull. Sorrow crashed against his barricade leaving more structural damage. But unlike Zen's inability to regenerate itself at the end, Cally felt something else beginning to happen: a transformation was taking place, reinforcements slowly being constructed.  
    Avon was calcifying, turning to stone.  
  
    "Blake is dead."  
   _Blake is alive,_ he wanted to howl. _I would know if he was dead. I would have felt it—_  
    Ah, but there lies the problem.  
    Avon, you're a fool. Anna had confirmed it. Sentiment— _love—_ makes you blind and stupid. _Again._  
    He's not dead, he's not dead, he's— _lost._ Our lives are linked. Our deaths will be as well.  
    No. No. No emotion. No. You must not...  
     _I lost. I lost. I LOST._  
    (Stone. Turn yourself to stone.)  
    He had not only lost Blake, he had also lost the _Liberator._  
      
    "You'd better watch this, Avon," said Dayna after Vila (oh, clever Vila!) had arrived with a rescued Orac.  
    Stardust and space debris.  
    Cally watched the _Liberator_ shatter as she held her Moon Disc so tightly it felt her psychic anguish. _I am here,_ it told her. _Keep me with you, now more than ever._  
    All their emotions were so amplified that Cally had no difficulty in reading each of them.  
    Tarrant, as was typical, took immediate command. Despite being weary, resigned, still grieving for his brother, he remained resilient. He had always seen himself as the protector of this group, not Avon, and certainly not Avon in his current apathetic state.  
    Cally felt Dayna's hatred for Servalan, as well as her fury and triumph at the woman's demise aboard the exploding ship—then anguish for the loss of her harp, followed by a determination to survive so that she might be able to construct a new one.  
    And Vila, poor Vila.  
    Vila would later tell her how he and Dayna had been with Zen as the colossal computer "died'. Knowing those two had been there at Zen's final moments gave Cally comfort. Despite his resigned shrug, she could feel Vila wanting to crawl away to weep somewhere, he who was the kindest and gentlest of them all.  
    Cally turned and saw that he and Dayna, who had been the last to leave the now-destroyed _Liberator,_ were the last to look at Avon as he stood there observing the results of his obsession.  
    And Avon...  
    *Avon, what have you done?* she hurled at him.  
    She only felt one thing from him then:  
    Amusement.  
      
    Avon remembered Zen's secret and he would make it his new goal. _Someday,_ he promised the ghost of Zen, _I will take your place._  
    What they would soon learn was that Zen had made the ultimate sacrifice. Dying, "he" had held the _Liberator_ together for one final mousetrap.  
    It was this realization that finally made Avon smile.  
  
   _The shadow will not be able to join again with the man_  
         _Though the darkness will stay._  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Avon's conversation with Zen at the beginning of this chapter foreshadows the future events in my story ["Aboard".](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7678048/chapters/17488684)  
> And coming up next: confessions, an explosion and a cry heard across the universe.


	10. Retreat in Doubt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the events of "Terminal," before the episode "Rescue".

They argued.  
    Everyone threw in an opinion that was overruled by somebody else's opinion—all except Avon, whom no one consulted. They continued to shun him and he stood there in impassive silence, offering nothing but very much aware of their present disdain. As expected, Tarrant was the loudest of them. Marooned on a hostile world with only the possibility of a damaged spacecraft as their only possible means of escape, the pilot of the destroyed _Liberator_ now regarded his own solutions to be the best options. He took the leadership he had always felt he deserved and used it to bark commands like the former Federation officer he had been—only the others were not in the mood to follow orders. And worse, they were dismissing his ideas, which irritated him.  
    "You all readily followed Avon on blind faith and now my suggestions are so unreasonable?" he sneered.  
    "No, Tarrant, the logistics are impossible! It cannot be done!" Dayna protested.  
    Vila made no quips in response, his spirit presently deflated; he only offered meek observations. Cally interjected with attempts to calm down Dayna while the young woman railed at Tarrant. Whilst the pilot excelled at strategy, Dayna understood the mechanics of their situation much better and she had little hope for making Servalan's broken ship spaceworthy. Tarrant was not accepting any defeatism; far from being encouraging, he was now only belligerent because no one was cooperating with him.  
    Cally knew they were getting nowhere like this.  
    There was the inevitable awkward silence when Tarrant finally remembered that Avon was still there with them and had not even attempted to contribute, despite their ignoring his presence. Ordinarily, their reluctant leader would have cut through their overlapping opinions with his usual dry pragmatism, laced with sarcasm and restrained annoyance—now he only stood there, apathetic, as if watching a dull performance on a stage.  
    Tarrant finally accosted him, blurting out: "Well, Avon? Do you have _anything_ at all for us? Had you confided in us at the very beginning— _trusted_ us—this situation could have had another outcome. But no, you had to go selfishly barrelling through an unknown quadrant of space, threatening us, and then killing our ship. You made us lose _everything._ EVERYTHING. Are you proud now?"  
    Tarrant glared. Avon's face remained expressionless, detached.  
    "Are you finished?" he finally said in a tired voice. It was the first time he had spoken since they had watched the _Liberator's_ destruction.  
    "If we don't get off this planet, we'll _all_ be finished," Vila muttered. It must have been the return of Avon's calm, clipped voice that gave Vila the encouragement he needed to finally make a wisecrack. For some strange reason, this gave Cally hope.  
    Tarrant was considerably taller than Avon and he took this opportunity again to flaunt it, looming over the older man. Avon, who had probably spent a lifetime enduring similar attempts at intimidation, maintained his mask of nonchalant boredom.  
    Cally interjected. "Tarrant, you're obviously frustrated. I understand that—we _all_ are. But lashing out at Avon isn't helping."  
    Avon then said in a flat voice: "Stop making a fool out of yourself again, Tarrant. Recriminations at this point will not get us off this planet. I, however, _will."_  
    "But _you're_ the fool who got us here to begin with!" barked Tarrant. He gave a derisive laugh. "Servalan played you well. Almost as well as Anna Grant."  
    Cally now saw a frightening white-hot fire leap into Avon's eyes as he stepped towards Tarrant. Before anything escalated further, Cally—without thinking—did something she had never done before: she sent a bludgeoning telepathic shout into the brains of both of them.  
     _*STOP THIS.*_  
    Both men winced and reached to cover their ears, despite the cry erupting from within their own heads. The power of it overwhelmed even herself, and she wondered if her telepathy was being enhanced by the presence of the Moon Disc still safely in her pocket.  
    Tarrant shook himself, as if to free himself of the mental assault, and fixed his antagonist with a painful grimace. "I don't need to say any more, of course. Everything I've just accused you of you've already said to yourself, Avon. It's obvious you've already called yourself a fool a hundred times over."  
    Avon's silence now verified the truth of Tarrant's observation. He endured Tarrant's triumphant grin, but said evenly, "No. You need not even open your mouth, Tarrant. I would actually prefer that you never open your mouth again, but we cannot always have what we want, can we?" He adjusted his posture almost imperceptibly. "However, I agree with your original, calmer suggestion that we explore the compound for resources. That is the best course of action for the time being. In the meantime, I shall go see if Servalan's ship can be repaired."  
    "You're not going out there alone!" Dayna cried. "Those link-creatures are lurking all around and who knows what other monstrosities are out there as well. You'll need technical assistance— _and_ someone with excellent aim. I'll go with you."  
    Avon said quietly, "I don't expect anyone else to risk his or her life for this mess I've gotten you into. I'll go alone."  
    There it was then, the turning point: Avon's admission of guilt.  
    Tarrant wasn't convinced of Avon's altruism. "What's to prevent you from repairing it and then flying it off alone, leaving us all behind?"  
    Dayna was the first to rally to their leader's side. "Don't be ridiculous. Avon would never do that!"  
    Vila, though, said carefully, "Would you, Avon?"  
    Avon's face was unreadable.  
    "You are not going alone," Dayna insisted, stubborn. "We're still a team. We take care of each other. _Right?"_ She turned and glared at Tarrant. The pilot opened his mouth for a rebuke but ended up sighing instead in defeat.  
    Cally smiled broadly at Dayna, grateful. At last, Tarrant's temper finally began to cool and he even looked slightly abashed. "Yes, of course," he muttered. "We're a team."  
    Avon went on methodically: "Yes, Dayna, your technical skills would be most invaluable to me. In the meantime, this compound will have to be our temporary accommodations. We should naturally search it for provisions: food, tools, equipment. And I shall also consult Orac for other options."  
    Dayna turned to Vila then and said gently, "Thank you for rescuing Orac, Vila."  
    The small man shrugged. "I think I'd actually miss that annoying box of junk if I hadn't." He was pleased that his quick thinking before being teleported off the dying _Liberator_ had finally been acknowledged. This was verified even more so when he turned and met Avon's eyes; though Avon did not thank him out loud, Cally did not miss the curt nod the other man gave him. Vila almost beamed with joy.  
    Tarrant, though calmer, was not yet ready to completely forgive. "You owe all of us, Avon. Tell us what you think we need to do. And for god's sake— _trust_ us this time."  
    Cally sensed Avon's impassiveness waver as she watched his eyes drift to the floor.  
     _Trust. A word I would choose never to hear again,_ he had once told her.  
    Cally stepped forward. "Perhaps we should rest before we attempt anything first. Clearer heads will be be more helpful, don't you think?"  
    Though Tarrant argued again for no delays, Vila and Dayna agreed with Cally. It was these two who explored Servalan's chamber and soon discovered refrigerator units stocked full of luxury Earth delicacies. "Servalan had quite expensive tastes," Dayna observed as Vila lunged for an assortment of elegantly packaged cakes.  
    "What, no wine to go with all this? She must have taken it with her. Is that any way to treat her guests?" He pouted. "Not even any Soma. Completely thoughtless." He did not hesitate to rip open the packaging and stuff an entire cake in his mouth, savoring it. "This...is... _amazing."_  
     Dayna shook her head at him as she began to carry armfuls of exotic breads and containers of cheeses, soups and other dishes to a small table. They were joined by Tarrant and Cally who eyed the food hungrily.  
    Then Tarrant mused: "I wonder if it's poisoned."  
    Vila, his mouth still stuffed with cake, stared at him in sudden horror. But after some brief contemplation, he resumed chewing. "The way I see it, there's horrible ways to die on Terminal. I'd prefer to die happily from delicious food. I used to have dreams as a kid about food like this. What did alpha grades eat? _This."_  
    "Is this lasagna?" mused Dayna, inspecting another container. "I've heard of it..."  
    "Lasagna!" Vila sighed. "I have no idea what it is but I think I'm in love."  
    "Well, this is the takeaway version of alpha food," Tarrant said. "This looks more like officer class provisions."  
    Cally was looking at one of the soup containers with interest when she realized Avon was moving towards the door. She called over to him: "Avon, when was the last time you ate?"  
    "It hardly matters," he said dully. "I've no appetite."  
    "But Avon! _Lasagna!"_ Vila protested.  
     But he had slipped away. They all looked at one another.  
    Shrugging, Vila indicated Cally's soup. "Are you going to eat that? Thanks." And he popped it open. "What does a chicken smell like? Does it smell like this?" He sighed in bliss. "Real chicken soup. I've died already."  
    "I think it's artificial chicken," Tarrant said.  
    "What, are there no space chickens? Oh, who cares." Vila began slurping it up with zest.  
    Cally tore chunks of bread for herself but she was still distracted by Avon's absence. He had not separated himself from them until now.  
    She empathically scanned for any emotion coming from him—and what she felt was not unlike the rumblings of a seismic event.  
    "Oh no," she murmured to herself in alarm. She reached into her pocket to touch the Moon Disc and felt it tremble.  
    *Let's keep him monitored,* she mentally told the small creature and it sent her gentle reassurances in return.  
      
    Cally had been correct: the relaxation and sharing of food calmed down at least four of the crew members of the lost _Liberator._ They even began to have quieter, more constructive discussions about what to do next.  
    "Sleep seems to be in order, if Vila's any indication," Tarrant said and pointed. Vila had already made a nest out of Servalan's biggest, most elaborate cushions and he was snoring industriously. The speed of in which Vila lapsed into total relaxation had always been one of his special talents.  
    They made the unanimous decision to camp out in what they referred to as Servalan's "throne room," which was the most accessible and comfortable chamber of the stark bunker. Tarrant and Dayna sat close to one another, speaking in quiet voices, and Cally tried to divert her empathy in order to give them privacy. She found a corner for herself, sitting cross-legged in an almost meditative pose, and scanned again for Avon. She could feel him deep within the compound, down in the tunnels where he had told them he had searched for Blake. He might be exploring it, looking restlessly for anything that might assist them in getting off this planet. (Looking for a communications device as a way to send a distress call, perhaps?) Or he might just be walking off his despair. She was still receiving impressions of emotional restraint from him, energy boiling dangerously within him. She knew that what he was holding back was going to explode very soon, and perhaps quite messily.  
    She sighed. Let him work out his sorrows in the way he felt best, as long as he wasn't a danger to himself—or them.  
    She finally curled up and slept, and her dreams were of the sky over the Rose Sea of Cserveitir in which impossible chunks of debris floated— the broken remains of the _Liberator._ One of its spindle-like shafts remained almost intact as it spun lazily in place above the sea, defying gravity and refusing to fall. She looked down, noticing that the sand on which she stood was a crimson color, and it was spreading like liquid. It seemed to form a trail; so she followed the stain to where a familiar figure in black stood, perfectly still, and looking down to his feet. The red stain seemed to be originating from the ground before him. She did not fail to notice that his open hands were covered in blood.  
    She then started as she heard what sounded like three blasts of a powerful weapon. Each felt as if it had pierced her—and she cried out.  
    Having taken notice of her outburst, the weird dark angel looked up at her. What she saw terrified her: not only was his clothing also covered in blood from a still unknown source, but his eyes were glinting and dark with madness. And then he gave her a very reasonable grin.  
    The spindle of the _Liberator_ suddenly crashed into the sea behind her. The sound was like the shattering of a moon and it sent a monstrous, relentless wave roaring in her direction.  
    She screamed.  
    ...And bolted upright out of sleep. She was immediately disoriented by her surroundings, but then the reality of where she was struck her, as well as the loss that they had all endured. And she felt from somewhere else in the bunker another huge wave breaking free from another turbulent ocean.  
    So Avon had finally erupted. She felt an overwhelming explosion of fury/grief/hatred from him and it was so _loud_ to her empathic senses that she wondered if the others had felt it as well. As it turned out, only one of them had.  
    "You saw it, didn't you?" said Vila whom she had just noticed was by her side, arms hugging his knees which were drawn up to his chest. He had been watching her as she slept, she realized, and ordinarily this notion would have disconcerted her had she not seen how concerned he now looked.  
    At first she thought he was talking about her dream of the broken _Liberator,_ the blood-covered man (of course, it was Avon) and the tidal wave.  
    "Vila?"  
    "You saw all the humanity just drain out of him when the _Liberator_ exploded," he whispered.  
      "I saw that when Servalan told him Blake was dead. That was when the change happened. It was as if he was transforming into another person. It felt like... what was left of his old soul was being slowly devoured and then replaced." She sighed. "That sounds so very ridiculous and metaphysical, doesn't it?"  
    "He had a soul to begin with?" scoffed Vila weakly, but the joke fell flat. He sighed. "Cally, what are we going to do? It's just the three of us left, you know. We're the last of Blake's people. We need Avon whole and unbroken now—but he's making me more afraid of him than I've ever been before."  
    She frowned. "He scares you, Vila?"  
    "Doesn't he scare you?"  
    "No."  
    She stood up, stretching out cramped muscles, now knowing what she needed to do.  
    "No, of course not," Vila shrugged. "He likes you the best out of all of us."  
    "Does he?" murmured Cally, distantly. She walked over to the table and began to retrieve unopened packs of food, stuffing them into a nearby duffel bag, thinking perhaps she could entice him to eat when she found him.  
    "You're the one who keeps him in check. The way he used to keep Blake in check."  
    Cally turned to him. "What are you saying, Vila?"  
    Vila looked surprised that she had even asked. "You're his conscience, Cally. And he listens to you. You keep him... well, sane, I think."  
    Cally frowned. "I failed him this time, then. I failed _all_ of you by not telling you that I knew where we were going and who he was looking for."  
    Vila sighed. "I think Avon didn't want a repeat of what happened to Anna and wanted to leave us out of this rescue mission. I think, in his brittle heart, he actually was trying to keep us all safe while he went to find Blake. And I also think, deep down, he suspected a trap and yet he still had to do it— out of love, of course. But he would die first before admitting that." He shrugged. _"We_ would have done that for Blake, too. That's what Tarrant doesn't get. It could have been either of us, only Avon is the one in love."  
    Cally smiled. "You really do understand Avon better than you let on, Vila."  
    Vila gave a derisive snort. "Cally, I'm more skilled at self-preservation than he is. And I can always recognize a kindred spirit." His face sobered. "I don't think we can get off this planet without his cold logic—we need it intact. But not when he hates himself like he does right now. I'm sure you've noticed that he has a tendency to just shut down and go all catatonic when his emotions get too out of hand."  
    "Yes," Cally murmured. "I have noticed that."  
    Time to get to work, she decided.  
    She knew that a door had been closed between herself and Avon that needed re-opening and this time a jar of herbal bath salts was not going to be the solution. It hadn't been so long ago that they had shared their weaknesses with one another, had been candid, even physically intimate. But now she feared that closeness and understanding, that convergence of lost souls, had been irrevocably damaged. Vila, the only other member of Blake's original crew, was also the only other person who seemed to know Avon as well as she did— but the two men hid behind the self-protective roles they played. Vila the Clown, Avon the Cynic. Despite being aware of the other's truer hidden selves, neither wanted to take off his mask. There was begrudging respect, but they still didn't trust each other very much. A pity, Cally thought: their similarities could actually make them quite good friends if they really wanted.  
    Cally cast a glance to the crew members who had never met Blake. Tarrant was asleep against Servalan's couch; Dayna's head had perhaps accidentally fallen onto his shoulder in sleep. It was the most intimate she had ever seen the pair of them. They both had been apparently exhausted, so much so that her conversation with Vila had not even roused them. They suddenly reminded her of sleepy children and she could not help feeling envious.  
    Vila was studying her face. "You're going down into the bunker to talk to him, aren't you?"  
    "Yes. As you said, we need him intact. He's useful."  
    Vila lifted a wry eyebrow, smirking. "And now you sound like him. Just do me a small favor and be careful. I have a bad feeling about this place. Call it a coward's instincts."  
    Cally touched his arm in gentle gratitude. "Don't worry. I'm carrying a talisman that insists it will protect me."  
    Leaving a confused Vila behind her in the "throne room," she descended into the labyrinth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted the focus of this chapter to be mostly on Cally and Vila... before things go horribly wrong.  
> This is also the first time in the course of this whole story that all the crew members are finally present in the same scene. (Orac's there but thankfully he's not saying much.)


	11. Ramparts Fallen

        The heartbeat of the artificial world Terminal matched the hollow echo of Cally's footsteps through the bunker's underground tunnels. She imagined being stranded here forever, wondering if there would eventually come a time when she would cease to notice that sound like a gargantuan ticking clock the size of a planet. She passed through some of the metal-caged chambers she had entered with Tarrant just prior to their capture by Servalan's guards; she followed a trail of scattered destruction leading even deeper downward. She encountered overturned chairs, trays of tools smashed to the ground, even a monitor that was shattered in pieces on the floor of the room where plastic human molds hung like surreal art pieces.  
        All this physical rage, this damage, it was was so unlike Avon. She imagined him hurling the found items about and kicking the chairs across the chambers; she imagined a black-clad arm sweeping the electronics to the floor with a shower of sparks and silicon splinters. Avon in a calmer state of mind would never have been so wasteful with any possible resources.  
        She continued until she saw a room with an examination table and an empty silver bed. And at long last, she knew she was at the epicenter for the emotional maelstrom that had so violently awakened her. Seated on the floor beside the bed, almost hidden with his back to the metal wall, with his face in his arms, was Avon.  
        "If you come any closer, I'll kill you," he snarled softly, without lifting his head.  
        "No, you won't," Cally said, very gently, and she went and sat down on the floor beside him.  
        The room smelled of static and some pungent chemicals; the muffled, relentless thud of Terminal reverberated through the floors, seeming to come from the very bowels of the planet itself. Despite this, she could still hear Avon's buried breaths as each was absorbed into his arms.  
        *Avon, may I come in?*  
        He finally lifted his head but kept his head turned from her, making it impossible to see his face in the shadow the wall cast over him. She sent a tentative soothing wave of empathy toward him, with the innocent intention of calming him—but he flinched and threw up his own barricade. She noted, with chagrin, that he had gotten quite good at shielding himself at close range from her telepathy.  
        "Stop it," he growled, his face again buried. "I don't need your mental medicine."  
        "I'm sorry," she said out loud. "I was only trying to—"  
        "I need no one's help."  
        "As you say."  
        Respecting his wishes, she psychically retreated, no longer attempting to scan his emotions. What she could see with her own eyes was informative enough. Except for the planet's deep, incessant pulse, they sat in near silence. Then at last, Avon's rusty voice re-emerged, low and exhausted. "I had to come back down here to check, just to make certain. To see if she was lying again."  
        "She was telling the truth this time, or at least what she believed to be the truth," Cally said, resting her own arms on her bent knees. She lowered her chin onto them, resigned. "I scanned her and felt no duplicity. She believed that she saw Blake die."  
        "No." The word scraped from his throat. "No, I told you before—I would have _known_ if he was dead. I would have... _felt_ it."  
        Cally felt pity for him. How strangely fatalistic he was when when it came to Blake. Even an Auron, a scientific race of people who had somehow still managed to believe in premonitions, could not sense whether another being was alive or dead in the universe. Why was this cold, pragmatic man clinging to this wild and illogical belief?  
        In the chamber above where they had all watched the _Liberator_ explode on the viewscreen, she had felt Avon becoming as impassive as stone, to the point in which he had found his own lack of emotion amusing. It had alarmed her then, but now he seemed quite the opposite from that indifferent creature that had grinned at the viewscreen. She attempted an investigation again, very subtly, so as not to alert him to her psychic scan. What she found was that he was making another attempt at a transformation. A newly-constructed rampart against his rising emotions was rapidly weakening—and then it abruptly collapsed. Just as quickly, he built yet another—but it too broke under its own weight. His apathy was failing him and he was shaking under the strain of maintaining his emotionless fortress.  
        She put a cautious hand on his arm, prepared for it to be shaken off. However, he only gave it a brief glance and, for now, allowed it. He gave the wall beside him his attention again; she had not been able to get an unshadowed glimpse of his eyes.  
        "You need to accept it this time, Avon. He's not coming back," she said very gently.  
        Avon leaned his head against the wall now, his breathing thickening even as he maintained a controlled growl. "You should all go to Servalan's ship and leave me behind. Get off this hellhole of a planet."  
        Cally shook her head. "We're not leaving you behind."  
        "Why not?" he hissed. "I would leave you all in a heartbeat. You all expect it of me. It might end up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy."  
        She studied his hawkish profile. "And would you truly do that? Would you actually abandon us?"  
        He finally turned and glared at her then. The chamber in which they sat was illuminated by overhanging cages of blue-white tubes of light; his face was turned directly into this milky glow and she could see how raw with anguish his eyes were. So—he _had_ been weeping.  
        "You always want to believe the best of me, Cally. Well, there is nothing to believe in anymore. There is nothing even _left_ of me—I'm just a husk." He bit back what sounded like a sob and stared straight ahead.  
        Cally took one of his clenched fists and caressed it until she had pried apart the vise-like grip and entwined her own slender fingers with his.  
        "Was this where you saw him?" she asked, indicating the room with a gentle thrust of her chin. "Is this where the illusion took place?"  
        "Lying on a table, wired to a machine keeping him alive. It was as if... He had told me once about how they had wiped his memories. They'd strapped him to a table against his will..." He looked up at the silver bed where Servalan's people had recently placed himself, where he had been given new memories rather than having old ones erased, as had been done with Blake. Cally knew he would have preferred the erasure. "He was so... _real._ I had to come back down here to look one last time." He gasped for air then, as if he were being sucked underwater. "And she was right. It had been very well-planned, a clever trick a long time in the making. And so she snared me. And I believed in this fantasy at the cost of..."  
        Cally knew he could not say "the _Liberator"_ out loud. Their long-lost pilot Jenna Stannis had named the ship this after the computer Zen had pulled it from her mind. As a telepath, Cally had been fascinated by Jenna's psychic link with Zen and, in their more intimate, private moments together, Jenna would tell Cally what it had been like to be so completely "known" by another entity. "Is this what being a telepath is like?" she had asked Cally. "Having no secrets from one another?"  
        Cally had explained to her that it was a matter of consent. To invade an other's mind against one's will was considered an assault to an Auron—a violation. What the Federation had done to Blake, tearing from him his memories of his early life, his loved ones, his triumphs, his very dreams—that had been horrific. What Servalan had just done to Avon, implanting false memories, inserting a beloved voice and a face—it was just as foul. As Cally had been a victim of psychic intrusion many times over, she had been particularly careful about using her own abilities, even when it might have been useful to the others. She did not invade.  
        However, it had changed with Avon. For some reason, she had gone against her own ethics when it had come to him. She thought of herself standing outside the closed door of his cabin not so very long ago. _*I am going to keep talking in your head until you open this damned door!*_ She now cringed at the memory of that night. He had put an actual physical barrier between himself and the rest of the crew, and she had still violated it. Since then, she had vowed to always ask him for permission. _(*Avon, may I come in?*)_  
        There was silence between them now. Finally, after a short while, Cally looped her arm through his and rested her head on his shoulder, hoping this closer contact would draw him out of himself.  
        "It's happened," she sighed. "We need to move on from here. That's all there is."  
    And then that was the end of it. He made a last attempt at constructing an emotional barricade, but this time it crumbled before it could even be built. A weeping Avon was a strange, broken thing—it pulled itself into a tight, protective ball, all the while sounding hoarse and furious. As he rocked back and forth and grabbed fistfuls of his own hair, a ragged sob tore viciously from his throat.  
        "I'm such a fool."  
        Cally responded instantly, gathering up the broken pieces in her arms. It was like trying to hold together a disintegrating marble statue.  
        "Blake would never have let this happen," he wept. "But I did it for Blake. I _always_ do it for Blake. Oh god, how I _hate_ him. I hate him, I HATE him!"  
        The deluge that came was the tsunami Cally knew had been held back since Anna's death. So she made herself the rock against which the waves crashed. She stroked his hair and decided that what he needed more now was a moon that would calm the tides. She asked again for permission to enter his mind, and this time he relented  
        *This has to happen. Someone told me not so long ago that keeping a torrent within yourself would make you ill. And what good would you be to us, to _me,_ if you were incapacitated?* Using his own words back at him in an attempt to amuse him only made him sigh. However, this finally made the tides begin to subside a bit. There was a bark of derisive laughter against her shoulder that was still partly a sob.  
        "The person who told you that was deluded."  
        *I don't think so.* She gently lifted his head up from her shoulder, placing hands softly on either side of his face so that she could look at him. *Didn't you also say that tears were a sign of beauty and hope...?*  
        "I didn't say that— _Blake_ did. Me, I'm the one without hope. And the only beauty that I may ever find..." His voice dropped to a defeated whisper. "... is sitting here beside me."  
        Cally started. Avon saw that he had surprised her and he fixed her with eyes still burning with tears. She drew herself up, maintaining the intimacy of telepathy, and let her fingers reach out to caress his face, smoothing away what was left of the tide. *I felt something in you change up there, Avon, and it almost frightened me. Do I need to be frightened of you?*  
        "Never with me." His voice was a low resolute hiss. "You should never be afraid of me, Cally. I would never let anything happen to you."  
        She spoke out loud now. "And what about the others?"  
        "Well now... they don't need me," he said with a reasonable smile. It looked at odds with his reddened eyes. "They never needed me to begin with."  
        Cally felt a chill from somewhere in the tunnel; the scent of ozone was somehow stronger now. She dismissed her sudden unease and looked instead into his ravaged brown eyes that were only now regaining some of their usual adamantine focus.  
        Her mental inquiry was a whisper. *And I do?*  
        They stared at one another without any words, mental or verbal. None were necessary.  
        Finally, Avon sighed. "They needed Blake. And I... am not Blake. I will never be Blake."  
        "No," Cally shrugged, "because somebody has to be Avon. Obviously."  
        He gave her a weary smile. "Obviously."  
        "Avon, you're exhausted. And you need to eat something. Here..." She began to pull some of the packaged food she had gathered from Servalan's chamber out of the duffel bag she had brought with her. She presented him with some crackers and a small tub that contained some sort of gourmet paste that she thought might be exotic enough to appeal to Avon's epicurean tastes. "You'll be useless to us if you aren't strong enough to keep up your cynicism."  
        The cages of light-tubes above them had begun to flicker then and Avon, distracted, gave them a glare of trepidation. "I wonder what sort of generator this bunker uses. Its power seems to be draining somewhat."  
        "Hey, pay attention," Cally snapped and waved the proffered food at him again. He pushed it away, disinterested. Cally abandoned her ethics once more. *HERE!* she insisted with a telepathic forcefulness that was not to be ignored. He flinched and turned annoyed eyes to her.  
        Finally, he sighed and relented. "Oh, very well." He opened up the crackers and the tub of paste, pausing to sniff at it. His irritation was suddenly replaced by a mild interest. "Rosemary and garlic hummus. Well now. I haven't indulged in this since Earth. A commendable choice on your part, Cally."  
        "I'm so glad," she muttered. "What's hummus?"  
        He ate all of it, washing it down with bottled water. He even greedily consumed two packages of shortbread cakes that were flavored with green tea and honey. (He informed her as much.) She was pleased that she had grabbed the weirdest delicacies she could find from Servalan's abandoned refrigerator, and had been correct in guessing that Avon would probably fancy them. She was only mildly disturbed that he and Servalan seemed to have the same esoteric gourmet tastes.  
         When he had finished eating, he leaned against the wall again with his eyes closed, looking drained. "Now, do you feel better?" Cally asked. He only opened one eye to look at her in response. Cally patted her lap. "Lie down. I'll help you sleep."  
        He was reluctant to give in to his fatigue, but he finally did as she suggested and lowered himself onto his side, positioning his head into her lap with a sigh. She resumed stroking his hair (which she saw he enjoyed) in time to the soothing mental caresses she also sent him.  
        *Breathe with me, Avon. Just... breathe. We are tidal, you and me.*  
        "Are you going to sing to me now?" he mumbled.  
        She only then realized that she had just quoted Dayna's song. She felt a brief pang of sorrow for the loss of the beautiful harp that had been destroyed along with the _Liberator._ However, the memory of Dayna's music had not been obliterated, and certainly not her song "Tidal" which had twined all their dreams and nightmares together. It would linger as a ghostly melody, and Cally knew that it would still remain beautiful even in that form.  
        *I can try to sing it,* she answered Avon, amused. *But definitely not out loud. My psychic singing voice is far superior.*  
        "I'm relieved to hear that," murmured Avon. "Sing to me then, if you wish."  
        She gave him a gentle, teasing smack on the side of his head and she saw him smile sleepily in return. And so Cally sang the most serene, rhythmic elements of Dayna's song from memory, using her softest, lilting, telepathic voice. She shyly tried to imitate Dayna's more melodious cadence as she began to weave it into an ethereal lullabye.        
              
           _From this distance you are calm and pure,_  
  
            _Vast to the horizon, moonlight washes over your shore._  
                  
                         _All is not as it seems_  
                  
             _As I watch you slip in and out of dreams..._  
  
                         _Breathe in, breathe out..._  
  
        Avon breathed in, breathed out; she could feel him finally melting into sleep. Then, at last, he succumbed with a sigh.  
        She looked down into his face, at the lines there smoothing out, relaxing, as he was being taken. That small expressive furrow between his brows even vanished. She gave his finely-shaped lips a feather-light brush with her fingertips and then swept the velvety maple hair from his forehead. At last, she allowed herself a small, pleased smile.  
        They would be all right now. Everything would be all right.  
        Then she looked up with a start, aware that there was another presence in the chamber with them.  
        Vila stood there, staring in astonishment at Cally with Avon's head in her lap. Vila was holding some sort of Federation device, something he had probably just discovered along the way, and he fumbled with it as he stood there at the entrance of the chamber. Cally looked down at Avon asleep in her lap, then back to the small man. *It's all right, Vila, he's not dead.* She wondered how long he had been there and she blushed furiously. Vila was blushing as well. He saw her embarrassment and began to blurt out: "I was worried, it's been awhile and I came to look for you to—" But she put a finger to her lips, shushing him.  
        *He's finally gone to sleep,* she told him telepathically. *We need him in working order, so it's imperative that he remains so. Just leave us alone for little while, Vila. And please, keep this—* She indicated Avon's uncharacteristic vulnerability. *—between us.*  
        Vila's eyes finally softened from their initial amazement, and he nodded in conspiratorial understanding. There was a feeling of deep respect for her as well, as if she had just tamed a dangerous wild animal. Then all at once, Cally felt two new emotions rise within Vila: the first was pity for the state of Avon, broken to the point of being under Cally's protection; the second was a strange mixture of affection and... was that _envy?_  
        Cally was astonished—did Vila have feelings for Avon? Why... _yes._ Why had she never realized this before?  
        His head tilted, Vila's eyes were focused with sad wonder on the sleeping man. Cally reassured him. *He'll be all right, Vila. I'll take care of him.*  
        Vila looked up and almost spoke out loud again.  
        "I've never—"  
        He clamped his hand over his mouth in time to stop himself. She had no idea what it was he had meant to say, but it did not matter because he rapidly switched his demeanor again to his self-protective, clownish mode. He indicated the object he was holding, the large, white, cylindrical device that he had found in the tunnels. Grinning, he silently mouthed the word "Binoculars" and gave her a thumbs-up, delighted with his plunder. Then he pointed in the direction that he would now take away from the two of them. He turned to go—but not before he gave the two of them an almost shy smile. Cally returned it.  
        After Vila had gone, Cally finally eased herself down into a lying position, continuing to hold Avon so that that his head remained pillowed against her. His head now on her breast, she let her arms encircle him, finding that she was lapsing into sleep herself. She had a wistful memory then of the two of them lying in comfort in each other's arms on the _Liberator._ And now what a strange sleeping chamber it was in which they found themselves: these echoing, metallic tunnels with strobing, blue and milky light and the dull thud of Terminal's heart keeping time, almost as if it were a clock counting down the hours until...  
        Whatever was to come.  
        Curled against one another, Avon and Cally slept. They shared one final dream.


	12. The Ghosts

    Avon opened his eyes to a roomful of roses. Without lifting his head from the person in whose arms he lay, he let his eyes scan what appeared to be a conservatory overflowing with all the colors of sunset and dawn, all the various shades of wine, and even more outlandish hues such as jade-green and cobalt blue. A riot of roses, so much so that it was almost a cacophony for the eyes. The scent was intoxicating, heady and cloying.  
    His hair was being lovingly caressed.  
    "Cally?" he murmured. He tried again. "Blake...?"  
    "Who? No, silly, it's me," said Anna Grant.  
    Avon looked up and the face of his dead lover was smiling over him. Natural sunlight shining down through the conservatory's glass domed roof made a pale, honey-colored corona about her hair. She lifted a quizzical brow. "Who is Cally? Who's Blake? Old lovers of yours? I thought I was your first—or had you been lying to me?" She sounded mischievous. "Granted, I was surprised myself that there had been no others before me..."  
    Avon lifted himself up from her arms. He looked about himself in bewilderment. "Where did all these roses come from?"  
    "They're ours," Anna proclaimed with an elegant wave of her arm. "We bought them all with all the money we embezzled. I had told you we would have our own greenhouse full of them and you actually insisted upon it. You wanted every color known to the Federation—and some not. Don't you remember?"  
    "No," he said, sitting up. "Not at all. Are we on Earth? That looks like our sun." He indicated the glass ceiling. Then he looked down at himself, at his clothing. He wore a grey leather high-collared tunic and trousers of a similar pewter shade; in fact, he had worn these garments during the battle for Star One, right before he had been sent off the _Liberator_ in a lifepod. Shortly before that had been his last moments with Roj Blake—the real Blake, not an implanted illusion.  
    "Yes," Anna smiled in confused amusement. "It's our mansion. I told you we would be rich. We are also invincible." She gestured again at the ocean of floral beauty as Avon winced at her words. _We will become rich and invincible,_ said the coded message that had been sent from the false "Blake."  
    "No," Avon said, rising to his feet. "This isn't real."  
    "Yes, it's all real, Avon! Oh, why don't you let me call you Kerr? It's not such a terrible name. Two names give you more dimension, don't you think?"  
    Avon glared about himself. "No, they don't. You should know about the duplicity of many names."  
    She looked offended. "What are you talking about? I'm Anna Grant. I've always been Anna Grant, just as you are Kerr Avon."  
    "You were also Sula Chesku. And Bartholomew. These—" His gesture indicated the entire conservatory. "— aren't real roses."  
    Anna gave him another confused smile. "They're all real roses. Why wouldn't they be? I told you we would only have the real thing when we became rich."  
    "No. The most real rose to me was manufactured by a computer per my instructions." He frowned. "I... lost that rose."  
    "Avon, don't be ridiculous. You've been under too much stress. Come here and sit with me," Anna laughed, patting the grass of the conservatory floor where they had been lying. "We'll never have a shortage of anything ever again, and that includes roses. If you lose one, you can just cut another."  
    The entrance-way of the greenhouse had a door that was shaped like a hexagon. Avon squinted at the silhouette that was now framed by this doorway, beckoning to him. The newcomer appeared to be a small older man—even shorter than Vila—with silvery hair and a dapper suit. He could not seem to keep the man's face in focus: his features seemed unclear, always elusive. Avon was not even certain if the man was human.  
    "Avon," said the small man with a deep voice that seemed oddly familiar, "it is imperative that you come with me." His lined, out-of-focus face wore a serene, welcoming smile.  
    Avon felt compelled to join the man, both out of curiosity and also to escape the cloying scent of a thousand roses. One rose was exquisite, but a greenhouse full of them was a superfluous and decadent.  
    Despite the silver-haired man flitting in and out of focus, Avon stepped forward, probably against his better judgment. "Why must I go with you?" he asked.  
    The small man only smiled—did he smile? It was so hard to see him clearly—and said, "Wisdom must be gathered. It cannot be given."  
    Where had he heard this before? The man slipped through the door like a grey will o' the wisp, and before Avon could follow, he heard Anna cry out behind him: "I'm not letting you go!"  
    Avon paused. There was the briefest temptation to stay there in this segment of the dream (for he knew it _was_ one, after all) with his former lover and betrayer, living in the luxurious world that she claimed they had both wanted. Perhaps he had wanted it once, but he was no longer the same naïve man who had felt compelled to undertake foolish acts motivated by love, or what he had mistaken for that irrational emotion. He turned to face her for a moment more, bemused.  
    "Ah, but you see, I've already left."  
    And then he entered the six-sided portal.  
    —And stood on the flight deck of the _Liberator._ He spun in sudden confusion. "This can't be," he gasped. He stood before the colossal hexagon that had been Zen. "How can this all be here?"  
     _You're dreaming, Avon. Hadn't we already deduced that?_  
    "You seem a little bewildered, Avon," said a deep, affable voice he had not heard in quite a long time. Wide-eyed with initial realization, he then squinted in disbelief, turning to the smiling giant of a man who had once been his fellow prisoner aboard the _London_ and then his crew-mate upon the _Liberator._ Prevented from violent rages by a limiter implanted into his skull, he had been able to use his incredible strength one last time to save the lives of his rebel friends before having been crushed to death. Blake had been guilt-ridden over this loss.  
    "Gan." Avon stood there, staring, not knowing how to address the dead; this next ghost. The entire ship that wrapped about him was spectral as well.  
    "Avon," nodded Olag Gan, maintaining his curt smile as his arms crossed over his massive chest. He actually looked pleased to see Avon, as if he had stepped into this scenario with the innocent intention of reminiscing with him.  
    Avon began to look about the flight deck in a slow and furious desperation. "Where is everyone? Why are you here alone?"  
    "I'm not alone," Gan said in a reasonable voice. _"You're_ here."  
    Avon sighed, defeated. "And so I am."  
    There was an unnerving silence again between them as Gan continued to calmly stand there, never losing that welcoming, cheerful expression. Avon found his old annoyance with the big man returning, the incidental detail of his being dead not changing any of this. He grew impatient. "Do you have something to tell me, Gan?"  
    "No. I'm just enjoying being here."  
    "Ah. Of course you would be, considering the alternate circumstances." Avon suddenly felt awkward. Gan was going to be as cryptic as the grey-haired stranger. "And _here_...shouldn't be here..."  
    "And what is it you're here for, Avon?"  
    Avon looked up at him, a derisive comment about to slide from an acid tongue. Instead, he surprised himself by saying in a quiet, somewhat mystified voice: "I'm looking for Blake."  
    Gan gave a knowing nod. "Because you loved him."  
    Avon heaved an annoyed sigh. "Was there _anyone_ on board the _Liberator_ who _didn't_ know?" Then he said in a voice as soft as it was bewildered by the admission, "Yes... _Yes,_ I loved him." Never, never would he ever have imagined confessing this to Gan, of all people.  
    Gan was unfazed. He shrugged. "He's not here, Avon. It's just Zen and I."  
    "Here," Avon repeated dully, looking about the deck of the ship he had helped destroy. Blake's ship, never his ship. Then a slow, creeping understanding took hold of him. "You and Zen." A slithering sense of hope rose within him, a dangerous possibility. "Then if Blake isn't here, that must mean—"  
    "Blake isn't the one you should be looking for," Gan said and then he pointed behind Avon. Avon turned to see the return of the small, out-of-focus man silhouetted once more in the hexagonal doorway.  
    The being's voice was deeper, more authoritative this time. "I bring you information. It is still advised that you follow me. What you've needed is through here and always will be. Think of it now and call to it. A moon is in your orbit and it will not be diminished."  
    "Enough of this cryptic nonsense. Who are you?" Avon demanded.  
    A fog seemed to lift from from the face of the small man as he turned toward the light of the flight deck. He wore another indistinct smile that seemed much sadder this time. "I am sorry that the rose I made for you lost its scent so soon." He gestured. "This way. Please." And he disappeared beyond the hexagon, into the bright amber light. Avon inhaled a sweetly saline fragrance from this new portal.  
    He cursed his own stupidity. The form of this frustrating being was altered, but it was undeniably—  
    "Zen?" he cried. _"Zen!_ Enough philosophizing! Give me a straight answer!"  
    He charged into the doorway where the small Altan man had gone, into the vista of an alien world. He vaguely heard Gan's cheerful farewell behind him as the hexagon and the the portal to the ghost- _Liberator_ folded into itself, vanishing entirely into the atmosphere of another world. He found himself thrust into the salty air of a shoreline, its sand made of crushed silver which glinted under the mustard spectral suns. The sky was golden, smudged with magenta clouds, and a sea of wine-red blossoms stretched the entire expanse of the horizon.  
    The Rose Sea of Cserveitir.  
    The tide rustled and sighed as it bellowed forward and then made a gentle retreat. _Surge forward, retreat in doubt._ Avon made a decision then: aloud, to the milieu placed before him, he said, "This is my dream to control. I will not let it be taken away from me this time."  
    He heard Zen's voice behind him. "The choice is yours. The path you seek requires you to believe _and_ it requires you to trust."  
    Avon sighed in irritation at the small alien's poetic musings. "I trust no one," he said and turned to face him. "It's a word to which I no longer give any weight."  
    But upon turning to confront the former ship computer made corporeal, he was startled to see that the little man was not alone.  
    The dapper Altan philosopher was presenting Cally with the synthetic rose he had once manufactured for Avon, the same one that had been lost with the _Liberator._ Cally was dressed as she had been in his sensual dream of the Cserveitir waterfall: silken gown of shimmering coral and scarlet, soft doe-brown boots.  She took Zen's rose with quiet gratitude, lifting it gently to her nostrils, smiling at what must have been its newly restored fragrance. Zen then turned to Avon and gave him a cordial bow—then his body, with startling abruptness, broke apart within an outline of starlight, disintegrating into the silver sand.  
    And Avon and Cally were left alone facing one another.  
    Avon took in the ethereal setting, letting his eyes linger on the alien sea and the strange algae that gave it its color and name. He allowed himself a weary sigh as a warm salt breeze brushed his face. He felt imbued with an unfamiliar sense of tranquility, which of course made him suspicious.  
    "We appear to be standing in your painting," he remarked.  
    Cally nodded, looking about with approval. "It's very close to the real thing. It's probably the only way I will ever see it again." The salt wind also tossed her hair and caressed it. Avon felt a longing to do the same. "Avon, are you dreaming, or am I? Are we sharing the same dream?"  
    Avon closed his eyes, savoring the wind which now swept hair from his own brow. "I'm... not sure," he admitted.  
    For a moment, there was only the sound of the sighing tide before Avon mused, "Is this possible because we are in close physical proximity to one another as we sleep?"  
    "It's likely," Cally shrugged. "It's happened from a distance as well. But it's possible that your unconscious mind _invited_ this sharing. Are you surprised by that?"  
    Avon did not answer. But... _yes._ Yes, he was surprised by this.  
    "It's common with the Auronar. I realize you might find it a bit strange to dream with another person." She stepped forward and held out the rose. "I believe this is yours."  
    "Keep it," Avon muttered. "Zen gave it to you."  
    "Then it's mine to give to you again," she said, continuing to offer it.  
    "I don't want it anymore," Avon said, turning away. He looked out at the sea of blossoming crimson algae. "I don't deserve it."  
    Cally sighed and took careful, graceful steps up to him; she placed a gentle hand upon his arm. "That's for me to decide." She now sounded as confused as he. "Avon, why have we both come to this place?"  
    His eyes lowered, avoiding her steady scrutiny. "Have I brought you here? I... don't know why I do the things I do anymore. I fight sentimentality like a warrior and yet..."  
    "I thought as much," Cally said. "You don't need to elaborate. I can read you like a book, after all. Inside and out."  
    "Perhaps you're the only one who ever could."  
    When he looked up finally and met her eyes, Cally wrapped lithe arms about him and pulled him close. He did not resist. She smelled of cinnamon and rose petals, and it was intoxicating.  
    "Your emotions are as deep as the seas of space," she said with a soft chuckle.  
    "That makes absolutely no sense," Avon mumbled against her hair. "You might as well have said something like, 'One times one is only possible in the ultra-dimensional' for the amount of sense that made."  
    She laughed and lowered her head onto his shoulder. He gathered her more tightly to himself, wanting her closer still, within and without.  
    They stood like this for a time, listening to the dream sea. And this is _only_ a dream, his pragmatic self kept insisting. It is nonsense. It is useless. You are seeing ghosts.  
    Then, Avon abruptly stiffened and pulled back from her.  
    "Cally. Break us out of this dream now."  
    "What? What's wrong?"  
    Cally's eyes were wide with confusion. Avon stepped away from her, suddenly horrified.  
    Zen. Gan. The _Liberator._  
    They no longer existed but in memory. Dream ghosts.  
     _Cally._  
    Addressing the sea, he cried, "I am in control of this dream and I choose to end it. NOW."  
    He heard a noise like a moon exploding.  
  
    He started awake with a gasp; he was greeted once more by stark reality of Terminal. Despite this, he was lying in entwined comfort with another; her body wound about him, keeping him safe and protected.  
    "The seas of space," he murmured dully as he regained full consciousness in Cally's arms.  
    "In the ultra-dimensional," laughed Cally softly.  
    He turned his head against her breast. "How much of the dream do you remember?"  
    "All of it," she said now, sounding regretful.  
    "I shall try to resign it to oblivion," he said. "It is best forgotten."  
    "Not all of it," she said. She caressed his hair. "What made you end it so abruptly?"  
    "Something... alarmed me. Something that happened before we encountered each other at the sea."  
    "Will you tell me what it was?"  
    "I'd rather not."  
    "Then it's because it frightened you. And it had to do with me, I gather."  
    "If you like." He sighed. "This dream-sharing, you said, is common with your people?"  
    "Only with permission," Cally said. "It would never have happened had you not desired it in some way." She ran gentle fingers down his cheek. "You slept well. You sought me out after eight hours while you were still in your dream. I could feel your empathic call even in my own sleep, and you probably weren't aware that you had reached out. The others were wondering where we were, but don't worry—I telepathically informed them that you were resting and that you should not be disturbed."  
    "How kind of you, but I'm not particularly worried about what they think. I'm guessing they're not overly concerned about my health and well-being, in the light of recent events." She could not fail to hear the bitterness in his voice.  
    His head was in her lap now and she gave him a reassuring smile. He reached a tentative hand up into her shaggy brown curls, twining his fingers into them. "Thank you, however," he said in an almost inaudible voice, "for coming after me. Both here and in _all_ the dreams."  
    She furrowed her brows. " _'All_ the dreams?' "  
    "I recall several."  
    "I thought you hadn't noticed I was even there."  
    "Oh, I was quite aware of your presence. Each and every time."  
    "You never acknowledged me."  
    "No. No, I never did. And that was my error." He traced the side of her face with an elegant gesture. "I... do not like to be dependent on others."  
    "So I've gathered. Perhaps you'll see things differently someday...?"  
    He only gave her a weary, unhopeful smile.  
    "I don't think it's ever possible."  
    They lay together for only a few moments more, then decided they needed to begin the escape from Terminal.  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Your emotions are as deep as the seas of space," and "One times one is only possible in the ultra-dimensional" are the "nonsense" lines that Orac spouts in the episode "Sand." I wanted to give a reason why Avon was so disturbed by what Orac had said and to offer another reason why he wanted Orac immediately shut off.
> 
> I thought Zen's alter-ego should of course resemble Peter Tuddenham, the actor who voiced him (as well as voicing Slave and Orac).


	13. The Darkness That Roamed

  
    Lights like fireflies chased each other around the ring inside of Orac as the small computer whirred testily into life.  
     +I have already informed you that there is no way off of this artificial planet beyond what you have already deduced, that being the reparation of the spacecraft left behind by President Servalan. Why do you persist in querying me, as it is an obvious waste of your time—and mine?+  
    "Hello, Orac," drawled Avon. "It's just my wishful thinking, I suppose."  
    +Need I point out the inanity of 'wishes'? They do not fall within the realm of science and logic+  Orac even seemed to harrumph, its tone always alarmingly human. +I specialize in probability. If that is what you refer to as 'wishing', you are woefully ignorant of the calculations involved in this problem. No other favorable conditions have been factored into my previous deductions, so therefore my conclusion remains unaltered. So, to state this with much more simplicity in order that your carbon-based brains might finally comprehend, you will remain stranded here on this planet until the unexpected occurs.+  
    "I understood you perfectly. What are the chances of the unexpected occurring?" Avon sighed. Though unfazed by the condescending tone of the computer, he still cast a weary glance over at Cally who stood beside him looking equally forlorn.  
    Orac was perched on a metal table in one of the compound's underground labs. Avon wanted it near any other still-operating computers that could be found, despite Orac not needing close proximity in order to access the computers' tarial cells. Perhaps Avon felt that the priceless little artificial intelligence (however crabby) would be safer in isolation down here, closer to the heart of Terminal and whatever mechanisms assisted the planet's existence.  
    Orac's vocal mannerisms still evoked the personality of its late creator, Ensor. +It will take some time to calculate the variable of 'chance.'+  
    "How long is 'some time'?" Avon muttered.  
    +Precisely 2.5 Earth-standard hours for analysis. To see if your 'wishes' might come true.+  
    Avon winced at the computer trying to make a joke. "My first wish is that you shut up and get started."  
    +Very well...+, chirped the computer with disdain. Cally imagined that it was disappointed that its levity was not appreciated. It proceeded to hum busily and did not speak again.  
    Avon furrowed his brows. "Where did it learn sarcasm?"  
    "Where do think he's learned it from?" Cally smirked. "His 'father', Ensor, gave him his irascible nature and his adopted 'Uncle' Avon gave him his cynicism."  
    "'He'— _it—_ should not be learning anything at all about being human. It's better off that way. And your anthropomorphization of it isn't helping." He pulled on his studded black gloves and strapped the binoculars Vila had discovered over his shoulder. "Cally, I would prefer you reconsider accompanying Dayna and me rather than babysitting Orac."  
    "I told you: I have an investigation of my own to conduct that might require Orac's assistance. And there's a chance it might take less than 2.5 hours for he— _it—_ to make our wishes come true." She grinned and Avon rolled his eyes. "Besides, I think you and Dayna will be fine on your own. I don't have the mechanical expertise of you two."  
    "Hopefully it will take less than 2.5 hours to see if anything can done with the rust bucket Servalan left us," grunted Avon.  
    "And is there any use in trying to convince Dayna to dress more warmly? The ground out there is covered in snow and she's traipsing about like she's still on a Sarran beach. I suppose she could exist on fresh air and clear skies no matter what the climate."  
    "This is why Dayna is coming with me and not Tarrant. It's not simply because of her engineering skills—she's just hardier outdoors and more adaptable to open and unfamiliar terrain than our former Federation officer."  
    "Or that you just can't stand Tarrant's company," Cally smirked. "So you've paired him with Vila for close-range scouting. And he's absolutely delighted by that prospect, of course."  
    Avon's nasty grin confirmed this. "Only so both of them won't feel too agoraphobic."  
    "You're improving in that respect, I see."  
    "I was always adaptable... and I happen to be a quick study." He tapped the gun at his belt. The black studded gloves he now wore were certainly as ostentatious as they were dangerous-looking. "I was once only a computer technician. I have learned a great deal since joining Blake's mad crusade."  
    The mention of Blake did not cause him pain this time, she observed. The old Avon was finally returning.  
    "Hmm," Cally bit her lip. "I refuse to believe you acquired your martial skills only since you became an outlaw. I think you've had a much 'rougher' past than what you would have us all believe."  
    He gave her another one of his hooded, cryptic smiles that usually made the person on the receiving end of it squirm; but then he contradicted it by catching her hand in his gloved one. She recognized it as a gesture of concern, though he was holding it a bit too tightly. What he said next was unexpected:  
    "A few moments ago, we were discussing the subject of anthropomorphization and it made me recall a conversation we once had in your cabin." He lowered his eyes now and sighed. "I'm sorry about your Moon Disc. I know it meant a great deal to you."  
    She smiled with relief; he thought the Moon Disc had been destroyed along with the _Liberator._ "Don't be. She's right here." She withdrew from her pocket the alien creature that resembled a flat, polished amber gem; it purred and quivered in the palm of her hand upon exposure in the compound's chilly air. She saw Avon try to suppress a surprised smile.  
    "She's been with me the whole time. She would not let me leave her behind on the _Liberator."_ She saw the slight wince his eyes made now at the mention of their lost ship. Blake's ghost had been replaced.  
    "It's almost like she knew," she finished in a whisper.  
    One of his hands hovered hesitantly over the Moon Disc; she recalled the time in her cabin when she had allowed him to touch it and it had communicated to him in return, whispering to her that he had empathic abilities, as ridiculous as that had seemed at the time. Avon's hand lingered almost longingly in the air for a moment and then he withdrew it quickly, as if he no longer felt he deserved the privilege of connecting with the Moon Disc. He said then in a gentle voice, "Cally. My promise to you is that _when_ we get off of this wretched artificial planet—and we _are_ getting off of this wretched artificial planet—we will go to Cserveitir. I want to see that waterfall of yours. And the Rose Sea."`  
    Cally frowned. "If the Federation has left anything of it. It's probably been mined into a dead husk by now."  
    "If the Federation is there, then they will have to deal with _me."_ His eyes grew deadly with that promise. His fierce, snarled declaration renewed her hope.  
    She dared to hope. _They would be all right. Everything would be all right._  
    "Well, you'd better get to work then. We have the Rose Sea waiting and all the seas of space." Her grin was mischievous as she quoted back the nonsense words of their shared dream.  
    "In the ultra-dimensional," he added with a darker whimsy. Avon's face was usually so still that when he quirked an unexpected, playful eyebrow, it was almost startling. He suddenly leaned forward to try to engulf her in a one of his disarming kisses, but she held him back, laughing.  
    "That can wait. I'll still be here when you return." She sighed, glancing over to the transparent box of flickering lights and wires that buzzed as if it contained a small swarm of petulant insects. "I'll be minding Orac and trying to do a bit of investigation of my own. _Our_ own." She indicated the Moon Disc as she slipped it carefully back into her pocket; she felt it slide down gratefully into its warmth. "Because she enhances my abilities, I want to see if she's able to communicate with Orac and possibly send out a broader distress call that someone might actually receive."  
    Avon looked doubtful. "It will be an intriguing experiment, even if it proves ineffective. The Moon Discs' last interaction with Orac was... highly irregular."  
    "Yes, well, you put in a fail-safe after that. This time, it should be a harmless meeting of minds."  
    "Orac is just a computer. It has no mind of its own."  
    "Avon, we've seen that proven wrong many times over. It took us to a black hole because it was 'curious', remember?"  
    "I can hardly forget. But it's been programmed to be 'curious'. It has no _will_ and no conscience. It is just a machine."  
    "As you say," Cally shrugged. She could not help but think that the small computer was quietly listening to their entire conversation about its sentience right now. She felt a slight chill and decided this was due to the laboratory's automated underground climate control.  
    Avon could not resist giving her hair a last stoke. She leaned into it like a feline, savoring the moment, but his smile became strange and haunted.  
    She thought she knew why and winced. "I'll be fine. It was just a dream. It meant nothing."  
    He met her eyes, unblinking. Then his face abruptly changed, hardened, became a cold marble mask. "Yes." His voice was flat. "How foolish of me." Too suddenly, he turned and was gone in a prompt, matter-of-fact gust of black and silver.  
    Something felt suddenly _wrong_ then. It had taken only an instant, but _something_ had broken, become lost forever—and Cally could not figure out what it was.  
    She frowned, staring at the empty space Avon had just occupied. There was that chill again.  
    Finally, she tried to shrug off the sensation and pulled up a lab stool, sitting down next to the humming box that was Orac. Her chin fell into her hand and she was already bored. "Now it's just us, Orac," she said absently. "And there's something I would like to try with you now."  
    There was no reply but for Orac's preoccupied buzzing.  
    "You're deliberately ignoring me, aren't you?"  
    Then she remembered. Of course: 2.5 standard Earth hours. She sighed.  
    +We are alone.+ Orac said suddenly.  
    Cally started. "Orac?"  
    +One times one is only possible in the ultra-dimensional.+       
    Cally stiffened, staring at the computer. "Orac."  
    It continued: +My emotions for you are as deep as the seas of space.+  
    She stood up and backed away from the humming box of circuits, not knowing why. "Did you hear that from our conversation, Orac?" The temperature in the room dropped; there was a crackle of sparks farther down the corridor from where Avon had strode.  
    +We will be lovers for a short while.+  
    Lovers... _what?_ Was Orac malfunctioning? She felt the Moon Disc in her pocket begin to quiver with agitation.  
     _Cally-friend—beware. It comes. Remember. Remember._  
    "I remember," Cally said softly as she approached Orac on the lab table as if it were a coiled snake. "I can hardly forget." The flickering wheel of fireflies within its clear casing slowed and diminished, now throbbing in a steady, ominous pattern like warning lights.  
    +Hello, Child of Auron.+ This new Orac-voice was a deep hiss. +We can finally converse again, you and I, without interruption.+  
    Now the laboratory had turned arctic; the corridor was strobing like a contained electrical storm. "This is not possible," Cally whispered.  
    The computer actually laughed. +Oh, but it is, Child of Auron. I have reconnected. The explosive trap the one called Avon implanted into Orac has been deactivated at long last, with help from the one who wore your face. I have regained my breach. I am the Darkness. +  
    The lights had begun to malfunction in the laboratory and she smelled ozone. More orange sparks danced beyond the door, closer this time, and she knew something was burning.  
    +And you...you are _alone._ +  
    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter refers back to the episode "Shadow" and the first appearance of the Moon Discs, and Avon's "security device" (an explosive) implanted inside of Orac should the Darkness ever try to escape its own dimension again. 
> 
> This is still a story "between-the-scenes" of the show's continuity and we're getting closer to the inevitable now.


	14. The Sound of a Moon Exploding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This takes place immediately prior to the episode "Rescue".

       _A woman's gained a shadow—_  
       _She'll want to give it back_  
       _To the dark side of the moon_  
                          _Because the sea has gone black._  
  
  
    The lights within Orac diminished, throbbed, turned a dangerous red. Cally called out mentally for Avon but was unable to touch his mind or his emotions: he was too distant from her now and there was... _interference._ In desperation, she sought other minds closer to her.  
     _*Tarrant! Vila!_ There is—*  
    Pain in her skull suddenly, a moon exploding—  
    +I have blocked the tunnels with fire, + interrupted the Darkness in a deeper, more baleful parody of Orac's voice. +There will be no access in... or out.+  
    Where was Orac's key? The simple act of shutting Orac off would stop this nightmare right now. She made a desperate grab in its usual place beside the computer, and her fingers touched empty air. _Where —?_ She looked with wild eyes about the table top, the floor, the entire chamber. Then realization set in.  
    Of course.  
    Avon had it.  
    Oh, Avon.  
    Cally cast glances at the glowing corridor, fighting to stay calm. This was not possible. How was this _possible?_  
    The Darkness seemed to read her terrified thoughts (and maybe it actually could read thoughts—it was capable of blocking her telepathy, after all) and it now seemed to relish her panic. It answered her in its smug, distorted version of Orac's voice:  
    +The Sleeper—she who wore your face—possessed Avon during his own sleeplessness. An aspect of her had been residing in his subconscious all this time and therefore she knew of _my_ existence, of course. She also knew of the barrier set against me, the little trap Avon had installed.+ There was a silent moment in which there came grating mechanical noises, and then Cally realized that the thing within Orac was laughing. +It was all far too simple. While taking the _Liberator_ to Terminal, Avon was tired and easy to control. He himself deactivated the trap he set for me... and he does not even remember doing so. I needed only to wait for Orac to be switched back on to gain control of this unit once more.+  
    It laughed again, its artificial voice garbling and hissing, then modulating and transforming.  
    It no longer sounded like Orac. It was Avon's velvety, familiar drawled tones she now heard coming from within the computer:  
    +I was waiting for the... _proper_ time.+  
    Cally thought of the perfect Alien-version of Avon on the shore of the Rose Sea, golden-skinned and beautiful—and how she had banished him from her dreams forever. That tempting creature, the residue of the Alien who had once possessed her, was now seeking retaliation by forming a deadly alliance with the Darkness, which even now waited for inter-dimensional release through Orac's carrier-waves. This false-Avon was speaking now through Orac, and it had become merged with an entity that could swallow suns.  
    Because it had wanted to live. _To live..._  
    The true-Avon had implanted an explosive device within Orac that would destroy the computer if the Darkness attempted to enter this dimension. Destroying Orac outright before this possibility occurred would have been out of the question, of course—Orac was by far one of the most valuable treasures in the galaxy, even if did only seem like just a cranky, buzzing box of tubes and flickering lights.  
    The trap set by Avon seemed to have been the only way to keep this being, this _demon,_ from breaking free; and it was a galaxy-eating demon. In their mythologies, the Auronar had spoken of the existence of such entities and Cally had only half-listened to these fantastical tales as a child. In Auronar legend, this particular kind demon could be held back and defeated with cooperative telepathy: a teaching tale for the children of Auron. She had never thought to see such a fantasy revealed as truth.  
    And here she was once again, at the dragon's door.  
    +You cannot send me away this time,+ continued the encased Darkness with Avon's rasp. It made her shudder to hear such a corrupted version of Avon's rich, smoky tones. +I have set traps for your colleagues as well. These other operating computers here in this chamber have been very useful, indeed, and I have discovered that they control much of the planet's mechanisms. They have a tremendous reach. Now I do as well.+  
    The others were in danger. Oh gods of Auron.  
    She made a sudden, desperate attempt to warn her crewmates. _*Tarrant!... Vila!*_ she screamed then, throwing her mental voice with the force of a psychic missile. She sensed Tarrant first, the closest. Reckless, arrogant, courageous Tarrant: he had begun to fight his way down to her.  
    The crackling sound of flames in the corridor, the billowing smoke, the ceiling lights beginning to burst into cascades of sizzling electrical sparks—this would all kill him before he could even get to her.  
     *NO, Tarrant! Don't even _try—!*_       
    She shrieked then as she felt something like needles stabbing her brain. The growling Darkness was slamming at her thoughts with these mental needles, confusing her, blocking her, _hurting_ her. And all the time, it kept using Avon's voice:  
    +They cannot come for you, Child of Auron. There is nothing you can do. You have always been nothing more than a puny telepath, so ineffectual and useless. Right now, you are completely powerless... and alone.+  
    She grasped the sides of her head, fighting for clarity. "No," she said aloud. "Not puny. Not useless. Not powerless."  
    Smoke began to billow near the ceiling. She did not have much time left.  
    "And I am not _alone."_  
    Then the pain was abruptly washed away from her brain, and she gasped in surprised relief. Lucidity was restored; not even a memory of the pain was left behind now. She suddenly felt stronger than she had ever been before, clear-headed, calm. She thought she now knew the source from which this unexpected restoration came. She was holding tightly to the talisman in her pocket and it reverberated with warmth, with healing, with reassurance, with an immense and unspeakable power that it was graciously sharing with her.  
     And it was... intoxicating.  
     _Hello, my dear and loyal friend,_ she told the little creature. _Just how much power does a single being of your kind possess? And just what are we capable of together?_  
    The Darkness knew of the single Moon Disc, of course, and it was unperturbed by its presence. In its corruption of Avon's voice, it sneered: +You do not have _all_ the Moon Discs to aid you this time.+  
    She allowed herself a grim and dangerous smile.    
    "But I have one of them." She withdrew the stone-like creature from her pocket and felt a new surge of potential as she joined her mind with it. "And it is enough."  
    The Avon-voice laughed, skeptical. +It is not nearly enough. I am gaining strength as we speak. I am nearly with you now, my dear child of Auron. I am pulling the energy from within Terminal. And after that, I will feast on this solar system. And beyond that, there are so many more, and I am so hungry...+  
     _Friend. Together. We are together,_ sang the Moon Disc.  
    Cally realized: the little creature— _she_ —had known this would happen. It had also waited for this moment so it might protect her.  
     _Keep me close, _it had begged her aboard the _Liberator.___  
     _Another moon has come into this sea's orbit and it will light the way..._  
    "You said it yourself to me in a dream," she told the Alien-Avon, who was merged with the Darkness. "I am the 'second, brighter moon that calms the tides'. Together, we deny you."  
    And Cally and the Moon Disc constructed a new barrier, stronger than the first one they had devised with the aid of the entire colony of Zonda's Moon Discs.  
    *We call forth Orac. We separate Orac from your control.*  
    The thing inside the computer snarled in Avon's voice: +No, Orac is my slave.+ Then its voice faltered; it had begun to feel Orac's carrier waves retreating and now it was desperate. +Child of Auron, we have an understanding, do we not?+ This new voice was trying to be reasonable; it knew it was losing and it sounded softer, more like the human Avon because it knew how much this disconcerted her. +Join with me. You will have access to all the minds in the universe. Orac and I will give you unlimited power. In fact, you will no longer even need your _body._ +  
    A new fragile voice emerged from Orac, sounding again like its creator Ensor, weakened, straining to the surface of an inter-dimensional sea: +I... am... here...The Darkness ... subverts me... I am...Orac... I am... still... _here._ +  
    The two entities within Orac separated now as they battled each other for control of the computer. And there was Orac itself as well, re-surfacing, nearly free from their power. It was almost as if there indeed was a consciousness—a "self"— within Orac, straining for its own sentience. Cally grasped onto that wave of existence, pulled on it like a lifeline. The Darkness, fighting for freedom, took on a physical form in her mind now: it had become horrible tendrils of oily black, with greedy fingers that snaked from its portal. It had become liquid, it surged like waves, it was—  
    It was tidal.  
    But she was the moon. The little alien creature she held quivering in her hand was her fellow satellite, and together they pushed at the shadow sea, making it flow backwards, turning it into a tide in reverse. It howled in her mind with the voice of a cyclone but she and the Moon Disc were stronger than it now. It took just the two of them, together, and they were invincible. Back into the breach they sent it, back into the hole in the universe from where it had come.  
    +NO!+ cried the voice that was still Avon's. +Cally, please don't send me away again.+  
    This plaintive cry and the use of her name almost made her lose her grip for a moment; it was a last, raw appeal to her dream-self, her sorrow for relinquishing that other creature that wore Avon's face and who had claimed to have loved her as the true Avon never could. She remembered the beautiful golden being kissing her hand, caressing her face.  
     _Do not let it trick you,_ purred the Moon Disc.  
    *How dare you,* she told the Alien, *how _dare_ you use his voice, use his dreams, use his grief. We will disconnect you from Orac for the _very last time.*_  
    The Moon Disc sent her reassurances of their combined ability. It was almost too easy. Together, with Orac's carrier waves included, their control felt limitless; it might take them to even vaster oceans of space. Cally felt she could call through to any world in the universe and be heard.  
    The shadow crashed backwards, a tsunami pulled back within itself. The rent in the dark dimension sealed itself up in its wake.  
    The portal was closed forever.  
    But Cally was not _done_ yet.  
    Orac made a sort of gasp then as it sputtered into whatever made up its awareness. The three of them—Cally, Orac and the Moon Disc—remained connected.  
    The corridor outside was filling with acrid smoke and the equally overwhelming odor of ozone was suffocating. More orange sparks showered about her like more angry fireflies; some fell on her but she felt no burning, nothing at all. A part of her told her she needed to get out—find a way to safety somehow—but she was touching the universe. How could she let go of that now? Her reach was so vast, her voice was so clear—  
    Cally/Orac/Moon Disc then went farther together than she ever thought was possible. She began to test her limits, sought other minds to share: Vila, Tarrant—no, go farther, there was Dayna and Avon in the snowy hills making for Servalan's ship. Yet Cally passed them by, leaving Terminal, extending her signal into the very galaxy itself. She was joyful in her search.  
    And then the impossible happened.  
    Passing through star systems, grasping for a familiar consciousness this far beyond all she could imagine, she could not have anticipated finding this one particular mind, this lost soul that was so alone, so despairing...  
    +Cally, it is inadvisable+, warned Orac.  
    No, it couldn't be him. How? No, this was not possible—it could not be _him._ He was dead.  
    Wasn't he?  
    So lonely, so engulfed in sorrow...  
    If she could make him hear her—call to him—tell him— _Help us—_  
    Another shadow overtook her. The world detonated around her, the sound of a moon exploding. A black tide of debris engulfed her and she was swallowed.  
      
    She tried to move but the effort caused her to scream. Her body was broken.  
     _Seek with your mind,_ said a reassuring voice. _Try. Try. Try._  
    ... She felt Tarrant again. He was still the closest to her. He was trying to push away rubble, coughing, losing consciousness... Abruptly, the link was extinguished.  
    Would she be as well? She was blind in the darkness, pinned beneath something heavy; chunks of the ceiling, more than likely. There was still the ozone smell and a low whir beside her that might be Orac. He— _it_ —was still operating, if weakly. She knew another explosion was imminent.  
     _Avon... Avon, can you hear me?_  
    I want to live. _To live._  
    Nothing.  
     _One times one is only possible in the ultra-dimensional._  
    She was losing awareness. Yet... somehow... that other presence still manifested in her mind, so distant, so needed, so beloved. _He_ was out there and he would make it all right again. But she was fading...  
     _Cally! Friend!_ the Moon Disc was trying to send her healing energy, strength. But it was all useless now. No, little friend, it will not work this time.  
    Could she still reach... _him?_  
     _Try. Try. Try. TRY!_ cried the little alien voice in her mind and she felt something quivering in her tightly closed fist. Somehow she had held onto the Moon Disc just as tightly as she had held on to that impossible link. So... Avon _had_ been right. She needed to tell the others that _he_ was out there, that...  
    Wait. There was someone nearby. Calling her name. She reached out, her mental voice straining.  
     _*Vila...*_  
    Her telepathy faltered. No. I will not give up. One more try.  
    She grasped the Moon Disc with the remainder of her strength and made one desperate summons across space itself to the mind she had so briefly touched. She screamed to that lost soul on the other side of the galaxy:  
     _*BLAKE!*_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, I had planned to have the next chapter of "Tidal" be the very _last_ one, but... I wanted to change things up a bit at Gauda Prime by having an unexpected arrival.  
>   
>  ***  
> P.S. Sorry for the lateness of the next chapter. Real life intrudes! (i.e., I have assignments to finish.) But I'm chomping at the bit to get the last chapters written and posted.


	15. From This Distance

_Is this the way that we were meant to be?_  
  
    It had once been during a bath that he had longed for some sort of transformation—into smoke, into gold, into nothing at all. A dream that had been partly induced by Cally's ridiculous magical potion had changed him into a frozen, helpless, despairing statue, taunted by an alluring Servalan. It had been humiliating to recall it and yet a part of him had wanted this change into something more rigid, less yielding, less _human._ A later, more pleasant dream had almost succeeded, but had made him more vulnerable as a result: turned to gold, his body was gilded by the simultaneous caresses of both Blake and Cally. This alchemy had also gone horribly wrong and he blamed it on empathy.  
    Sentiment was his enemy, always would be.  
    He leaned his head back now against Dorian's peculiar and decadent bathtub and closed his eyes. His rescuer's ornate Old Calendar bathing chamber was at odds with the rest of Xenon Base's decor. An ordinary salvage man, as Dorian claimed he was, would have no need for such opulence; but perhaps Dorian was far from... ordinary.    
     _*Blake. Find him.*_  
    Cally's dying voice continued to echo in his brain. These had been her last words to him in the catacombs of Terminal, where he had found her entombed in a ravaged tunnel beneath the destroyed bunker.  
    Her plea reverberated through his skull even now as he languished in the bath. He could not make her voice dissolve. He sank down into the water, trying to lave the decay of Terminal and all of its darkness from his body and memories. He was exhausted and this would not do at all; all of these despised and corrosive emotions needed to be eradicated.  
    The transformation must be complete this time. There should no longer be fear or sympathy for others— he would persist at all costs, even without a heart.  
    It was here in Dorian's Xenon abode that the metamorphosis finally became complete. He turned to stone.  
      
***  
  
    They had all heard her.  
    The resonating, telepathic call for Blake had made Avon stagger to his knees in the snow. Dayna had caught him, not having gotten the full brunt of the empathic blast as he had. She had just started to ask him what had happened to cause him to suddenly lose balance and grab at his head, when they were deafened by an explosion that blossomed over the treetops—a florid eruption that blotted out the sun. Dayna let go of him, no longer concerned by his plight, and went sprinting ahead. She was the faster runner, and fear for their fellow crewmates gave her supernatural speed over the frosty terrain. It was all he could do to keep up with her long, adrenaline-charged strides, but match her he did until they had reached the devastation that had once been the bunker.  
    It was a crater now, a ruinous entrance to the underworld of Terminal.  
    They found a gasping Vila with Tarrant on the ground beside him. It became clear that the little thief had pulled the taller man to safety just prior to the explosion. Dayna immediately fell to her knees next to Tarrant, cradling his head in her lap and checking with her hands for vital signs. She did not care who saw her caress his unconscious face.  
    "Vila." She looked up with sudden realization."Where's Cally?"  
    Vila turned anguished eyes to Avon.  
    "Cally is—" he began, but Avon pushed him aside with such a force that he was thrown to the ground. Avon did not even hear what the little man was trying to tell him as he bounded downwards into what was left of the still-smoking tunnels.  
    Coughing, relentless, he pushed through the debris, calling for her. Reaching out, trying to use what little empathy he might have still possessed, he sent her a beacon to follow.  
    He _felt_ for her.  
    He found a mountain of rubble that had once been the laboratory where they had last seen one another, where he had left her alone with Orac. He recognized the wreckage of metal tables and equipment, the ceiling cages that had once contained the strobing light tubes that had flashed warnings to him that something was very, very wrong.  
    A tomb now.  
    He let himself slide down beside it, onto his knees. His lungs felt as if they might explode from exertion and breathing in the toxic dust. The first glimpse of that deadly fire flower erupting in the sky had told him what he might expect to find. Of course.  
     Now crumpled to the floor, he fell into a sudden blackness. Later on, he would not remember what had transpired during this empty time, only that he gave up whatever it was that had kept him sane. He did not know how much time passed in that tunnel while he remained in a sort of frozen void, finally transformed into the nothingness he had once craved in the bath on the _Liberator._  
    It was a very quiet voice that pulled him into mobility again: it was reedy and weak as it entered his head, but it continued to beckon him from his catatonia. Despite its frailty, it might have been the sound of a moon exploding, so riveting it was for him—and he snapped into full awareness at what he realized was telepathy.  
    *Avon. May I come in?*  
    "Cally. CALLY." He  leapt to his feet, ready to dig her out of the crushed tunnel with bare, bleeding hands if necessary. "You're alive."  
    *No.*  
    Avon laid frantic hands against the tower of rubble as if it were only a door between them. "Cally. Keep talking to me. Keep talking in my head. _Please."_  
    *Avon.*  
    The voice was slipping away from him, strands of the thinnest gossamer. And yet it echoed as if from a million spacials away.  
    *Blake,* it sighed. *Find him.*  
    And then there was nothing at all. She was simply gone.  
     _Do you want death, Cally? Then I'll be there with you._  
    A being of gold, crumbling before him into dust.  
     _I want to live. To live._  
    "Cally."  
    He became aware then of the incessant thudding of Terminal, matching his heart, beat for beat. The merciless planet persisted, uncaring.  
    He sat down gently.  
    Time passed and he started to solidify.  
    He felt...  
    Nothing.  
    Nothing at all.  
    Then he shuddered with purpose.  
    A single word hammered into his psyche then, thrusting him to his feet, pulling him into motion; the word that was a name, beloved and oh-so hated.    
     _Blake._  
  
_The moon pulls its mask over the face of the sea._  
  
    The wreckage of the former bunker had formed a sort of cavern that led downward into stalagmites of debris. When Avon re-emerged from hell, he was carrying a battered and broken Orac. He and his black clothes were enshrouded in the sooty, grey dust of a subterranean realm. He looked like a statue come to life.  
    Vila was standing there waiting for him. He had earlier followed Avon into the tunnels for a short distance until he had heard a sort of resounding, animalistic cry, harsh and splintering through the catacombs—and then he had known he had been right. Terrified, he could not bear being right. He had turned and ran back out and up into the frozen landscape of Terminal, weeping as he threw himself down into a nearby copse. It was worse than Gan's death. This had been so... pointless. He had heard Cally call to him and he had failed her.  
    Now he looked at the man before him who was as impassive and as rigid as the statue he resembled. Avon's face was a marble mask. Had Vila heard Avon sobbing not so long ago in the tunnels? Or had he just imagined that hoarse, horrible noise? This man standing before him was not that man. This was a stranger.  
    All at once, Vila was very afraid.  
    "Cally—" he said, knowing what was to come.  
    "Cally is dead," said this new man.  
    Vila felt the tears rush down over his cheeks. He could not help himself.  
    "Stop that. It's unproductive," snapped Avon.  
    "But Avon, it's Cally—"  
    Avon spun on him and growled. "Cally's gone. Now stop sniveling. I need to repair Orac."  
He strode past the weeping man. "We want to get off this wretched planet, don't we?"  
  
***  
_Because the sea has gone black._  
  
    Over the next few days, he learned to avoid Vila's tearful eyes.  
     _Blake._  
    He would keep this to himself until he was certain he was right.  
    And he, Avon, would survive, no matter what it took. No one would get in his way, not even... friends.  
     _I want to live. To live._  
    He would need resources, new connections, a new ship. Anyone who crossed him would pay the price now. Anyone.  
    His transformation now completed, he waited.  
    And then the _Scorpio_ arrived, like a gift from gods in whom only Cally might have believed.  
  
***  
      
_A man's lost his shadow— he will want it back._  
  
    Somewhere else:  
    A scarred man huddled beside his fire, poking at dinner with some resignation. He had been subsisting on what small game he could hunt on Gauda Prime and tonight he was fortunate to have some flavor packets he had filched from one of the busier settlements who depended on his services. Deva had insisted he come in for some decent meals. He could be with Deva and the others tonight instead of facing the cold, Gauda Prime autumn alone. However, his own company allowed him to reflect, to plan, to recall what he he had lost. To remember those he had thought of as dear friends. (And a pair of dark, sardonic eyes that could see into his very soul.) Here, lonely, weary, he could wallow in his own guilt. He was becoming a creature of this rough, isolated wilderness, a feral woodland king. It seemed to suit him far better than space.  
      There was still a mustard glare from the sinking sun, and the deepening maroon cloud-cover hid the multiple moons. Occasional blockade ships would flick across the sky like angry fireflies.  
    Blake hunched on top of a hill overlooking a forested valley. With a gathering wind and the deepening colors in the sky, a younger Blake might have found the panorama picturesque, if anything on this harried planet of beleaguered farmers and miners could ever be attractive. Instead it made him feel more alone than ever, having no one to share this sight with him, even to remark on his affection for such inane trivialities. (A memory of shadowed sepia eyes sparkling. Lips curving around sharp, mocking teeth.)  
    Blake had been aware that Avon had watched his every move aboard the _Liberator._ Those dark, hooded eyes had swallowed him and then fascinated him. He wished for Avon's ghost right now to sit beside him on this cold hill and rant at him, calling him a bleeding-hearted idiot. Oh, it was the little things he missed...  
    And then came the cry.  
    His own name.  
    It was shouted above the wind, above the sky, above the planet itself. What the _hell—?_  
    He started, stood up, looked about in desperation. No one here knew _that_ name. (Except Deva.) And he was no where near another living soul on this secluded hilltop. He could see for miles (spacials) around him.  
     _*BLAKE!*_  
    It reverberated, deafened him, and he thought he heard more sounds following it, as if accompanying this cry down a tunnel in the universe. He thought this new noise might only be the rustling of the tree branches in the growing wind. Then he became aware that it was coming from inside his own skull.  
    Am I going mad? It was probably about time for that to happen.  
      _*Blake.*_  
    Bleak and feminine, a last frantic message from some remote source, through the emptiness of space—searching, powerful, like a dying gasp of starlight reaching the sky of a distant world. Blake knew the voice: he had experienced it in his own mind many times.  
    "Cally," he said to the cold night.  
    Then, as if in answer to his recognition of it, came the soft, weak reply:  
     _*Find him.*_  
    The  psychic impressions he had mistaken for dry leaves rustling were now more audible, as if this accompanying sound had been carried along like a passenger. Not leaves then, or the wind; rather an emotion, another person's unintentional broadcast to him. The sound of a man crying.  
    It came from an impossible distance. And it did not surprise him that he knew whose sobs he was hearing through Cally's telepathy. Something had happened, something terrible. And it had even made Avon weep this time.  
    "Oh, Cally," Blake sighed. In despair, he sank to his knees there on that hill overlooking the darkening valley. There was no doubt that she was gone now, and Avon had been by her side. Arrogant, aloof Avon had broken.  
    I wasn't ready for this, he told himself. Not yet.  
    The wind took handfuls of his campfire, making it blaze up into a sudden pillar. He forced it back down with fistfuls of dirt, then used a sleeve to push curls out of his good eye. He sat there, cold and alone again. After he himself had wept for a short while, he began to devise a plan.  
    "All right, Cally. I will find him. But this time I promise I won't ever let go of him again."  
  
***      
  
_Is this how we are meant to be?_  
     _We are tidal, you and me._  
  
    In the wreckage on Terminal, the little Moon Disc spoke one final time:  
     _Friend, friend. I have done all I can. Help has come._  
     _My friend._  
     _Open your eyes._  
     _Goodbye._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not over yet. In the next chapter, I divert from canon... well, canon as we know it.
> 
> And yes, I just realized there's an unintentional Jane Eyre moment in this chapter!


	16. Contrapuntal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Contrapuntal: (adj) having two or more independent but harmonically related melodic parts sounding together.

Avon:  
  
     _To the dark side of the moon._  
  
    He had leaned his head back against the bathtub. It was the first time he had been alone since Terminal, since the rescue, since...  
    Say her name. Say it out loud. Remember it. There's a roster now: Anna. Zen. _Liberator._  
     _Cally._  
    He could have just let Dorian's bathwater dissolve away the stone, slough away the new protective encasing he had created. It might have been so easy to just let go, to let Dorian have the command, have _him_ if he wished.  
    "Cally's dead." Still on Terminal, this snarl had been at Tarrant who had just regained consciousness. Vila had dragged that fool to safety whilst Orac and... _Cally..._ had remained below.  
    A struggling campfire was their only source of warmth now.  
    "Are you sure?" Tarrant had asked him.  
     _Shall I come in and draw you a bath then?_ she had asked him once, standing at his door, holding that ridiculous magical potion that she insisted he should dump into the tub (which he had done, along with his unfinished glass of wine.)  
     _I think I can manage,_ he had answered wearily, stubbornly.  
     _Are you sure?_  
    "Yes. I'm sure," he had told Tarrant, surprised at how soft his voice had become.  
    Water. The tides. The sea would drown him. No, he was someone else now. He was stone and the black tide would not wear him down.  
     _*Come to me if you need me. We don't have to be alone, the two of us.*_ Her concerned telepathic voice had been an invitation. He had accepted because he had been a fool; he had always been a fool. Anna Grant had only been the first to verify this.  
    For only a moment, he toyed with giving up the burden of leadership to Dorian. Dorian, this new charismatic man with a ship called _Scorpio,_ who had come to free them from the prison of Terminal, was intelligent, calculating, devious—qualities he might have once valued had he never met Blake. And Avon saw how hungrily Dorian looked at him.  
    "You really are most welcome here, my friend," Dorian had purred.  
    Avon should be grateful, he should offer himself in partnership; but he was so very tired. Blake, were you ever this tired? Yes, once. You were in my arms then. I was tired too. We were tired together.  
     _Blake. Find him._  
    And he trusted Dorian as far as he could throw him, despite the man's angelic face. Dorian had smiled brightly, ravenously, temptingly.  
    Avon sighed. He slid down beneath the water.  
    After the bath, he dried himself and then reclined on the bed that had been offered to him. He did not expect sleep to claim him as he lay very still, and so was surprised when he awoke hours later from a slumber devoid of any nightmares. Dark dreams were always the product of guilt and he no longer had any—his weakness had been eradicated. He felt renewed, transformed, hardened into a more impervious substance.  
    So far so good.  
    It was time to claim the _Scorpio_ for his own.  
  
***  
Soolin:  
  
     _All is not as it seems._  
  
    Unbeknownst to him, Dorian's companion Soolin was in the room outside the bath chamber while Avon was immersed in Dorian's ludicrously ornate bathtub. She calmly emptied the man's unattended gun of its magazine. She took great pleasure in her stealthiness, pleased that this man with the beautifully hooded and haunted eyes was obviously too preoccupied in his exhaustion to be aware of any intruder. If he discovered her, of course, she could easily made quick work of him—despite it being a shame to waste such a handsome (and naked) man. She smiled wryly to herself: naughty Soolin. She was only slightly perturbed at the greedy way Dorian had also looked at Avon. She knew her lover found Avon intriguing and delicious and just as alluring as she thought he was. Soolin, however, had long since abandoned jealousy towards any of Dorian's new prospects. She reasoned that she could share Dorian, after all, and learn in the process. Dorian had always claimed he was older than he looked, and he had told her that with with age came a special insight into the human soul. For him, this new man Avon was as deep as an ocean.  
    Suddenly, she froze when she heard an unexpected exhalation from their guest in the bath chamber. Avon had just released a long, unexpected sigh—it seemed to contain ocean-deep anguish, startling her out of her preconceptions about the newcomer. Soolin found herself pausing, stupidly conflicted. She was not certain why, only that she knew that particular sound of loss all too well, because it had accompanied her all the way from Gauda Prime.  
    She held the magazine in the palm of her hand, weighing her decision to deceive this stranger. At last, with a shrug, she pushed away the irritating sympathy for another who might have suffered as much as she had. She _was_ loyal to Dorian, after all. She had a good life here, steady employment; there was a need and appreciation for her superior marksmanship and gunslinging skills, and she certainly benefited from Dorian in _other_ ways as well. She relied on him for survival and she owed it to her family on Gauda Prime to keep on living.  
    How had this strange new man managed to make her think of her abandoned home and all the horrors she had left behind there? Just because of one very private sigh, one she was certain he would have allowed no one to hear?  
    She cast a last glance in the direction of the bath chamber before she melted away, undetected.  
  
***  
  
Dayna:  
  
     _Surge forward, retreat in doubt. ___  
  
    She did not feel the call of music these days, yet there were those odd, unconscious moments when she would catch herself humming, usually while assembling highly explosive devices. This might have seemed humorous in retrospect, only she did not laugh very much these days. Whenever she realized she was humming, she would stop, abashed that this side of herself insisted on slipping out despite her efforts to suppress it.  
    Music seemed wrong within the _Scorpio._ Though one might argue that the stark and silver, utilitarian interior was in need of melodic, rounded, arabesque sounds to counter the machine clicks and hums (and Slave's whining), none of its occupants seemed to desire entertainment these days. A receptive mood was essential for a singer, but this former salvage ship was not conducive to such frivolities. Where the _Liberator's_ sweeping geometric beauty inspired her musical imagination, the insecurity and raw ephemeral nature of the _Scorpio_ made music feel like an undeserved luxury.  
    The very ship itself seemed to hiss at her that it was forbidden.  
    Dayna had not sung since Terminal. She had not felt enough peace and stillness since the _Liberator's_ destruction to do so. Once, she had felt secure amongst her comrades, who, given time, she might even have considered a surrogate "family." She did not feel this anymore. Cally was gone and she felt herself increasingly impatient with Tarrant, to the point of hostility. She did not fully understand this anger; and in response, he seemed drawn to any pretty new face they encountered. Still, she remained within close distance to him on this small ship and it became increasingly claustrophobic, maddening. She wanted a wilderness again, a beach on which to run. She wished again for the immense majesty of the _Liberator._  
     Avon was even more aloof and strange now. He was even colder, if that was possible, angrier and more ruthless. Only Vila remained stalwart in his self-preservation, but even he was drinking far too much even for Vila.  
    Then there was Soolin. She was their newcomer, former lover of Dorian's and fellow lost soul. The two women began to gravitate toward each other out of necessity. Each recognized a familiar rebellious spark in the other that made them fast allies.  
   There was, however, a moment in which Dayna forgot herself and the forbiddenness of music aboard the _Scorpio._ They were all on the deck at once, seated and silent. It was very rare for no one to be talking, not even Vila—usually, he had to be asleep for this anomaly to occur. Perhaps everyone was concentrating or lost in his or her own thoughts or memories. There was a strange sort of unity then to which she might have reacted, a brief sensation of remembered safety and comradery. She had been conducting a routine monitor of the _Scorpio's_ defense systems—something their obsequious new computer Slave could have provided had she asked it—but she wanted to study the workings of this deceptive salvage ship for herself. In this unusually quiet moment, she had not realized she was humming.  
    And then she was softly adding words, imagining the spirit of her absent harp beside her. She only realized she was singing when she felt burning eyes upon her and turned to face Tarrant, whose face wore a strange mix of disbelief and regret. Then she realized that the song she had been singing was "Tidal."  
    "Tidal" had once begun as her and Tarrant's silly shared story, based on a mutual dream, a dream in which all of the crew members had become entangled. It had then evolved into a ballad of her own making, and now it had become a requiem, a ballad for a lost harp and all that had been destroyed along with it.  
    The absence of Cally at this moment was overwhelming—Cally was the other reason she no longer sang. Her friend had loved her music. Dayna had grown up without a mature female presence and Cally had filled that void in her life, becoming her confidante, her mentor, even a sort of older sister. She had encouraged her, defended her, tempered her more hot-headed tendencies. Cally had once been a soldier and also knew all about anger and the desire for revenge; only she had reconciled that negative thirst.  
    The _Liberator,_ her harp, Cally—all of that beauty lost.  
    She had stopped singing then, abruptly, aware of everyone's attention on her. She had dipped her head in uncharacteristic shame and mumbled, "Sorry."  
    The only person whose eyes she could meet had not even known Cally. Soolin was strong, mischievous, savvy, had a sharp wit and a hardy laugh. She could never be anything like the Auron woman, but Dayna knew that Soolin was withholding her own secrets behind that devil-may-care attitude. Soolin seemed to gravitate to her company as well, sensing they were more alike than either cared to admit. They might even become friends one day.  
    Dayna felt the others' discomfort the moment she had stopped singing. She dared not look at Avon, who wore a new, gaunter mask that had probably become his real face now.  
    Perhaps, _perhaps,_ there would come a time soon when she would build a new harp and write a new song; but for now, even her ballad "Tidal" retreated like a sad ghost into the back of her mind. The need for survival replaced it. She needed the tools of warfare now, not the frivolity of music.  
    But it would come again. It _had_ to. Oh, Cally, please let it come again.  
  
***  
  
Vila:  
  
     _Another moon has come into this sea's orbit._  
  
    He had always thought he and Avon made a good team, just as he was sure that Avon did not share this sentiment. Yes, Avon bullied him and called him an idiot, but all the while he always knew that they were both playing a game. They had picked respective identities they had thought would make good shields to hold in front of their truer, more vulnerable selves. Vila could tell by the knowing glint in Avon's eye whenever the other man berated him (which was pretty much all of their time together), that Avon was well aware of Vila's own masterly performance.  
    Vila had not expected what he felt now, this exaggerated fondness for Avon. He had not intended to fall in secret love with the man. Hell, he hadn't ever been attracted to another male since his mad crush on handsome Treverk when he was a scrawny adolescent and Treverk was older, an accomplished thief with a charming smile, who took Vila under his wing until he... well, Treverk got tasered and arrested and Vila never saw him again. (He was probably working for the Federation now, charming his way right up into their top ranks—if he wasn't getting regularly tasered.) Avon was nothing like Treverk—with the exception of that rare charming smile. The difference in Avon's smile was that you got the impression that he was also capable of tearing your throat open with those charming teeth. And unlike Treverk, Avon was never false: if he didn't like you, you knew it. Never any doubt.  
    Vila suspected Avon actually liked him. There were those candid moments when Avon's mask fell slightly askew, as if Avon almost wanted friendship. The two sometimes found themselves sitting in almost companionable silence, side-by-side (when no one else was looking), actually _not_ trading insults. And incredibly, even almost shyly, Avon would tell Vila his thoughts. Nothing deep, really, just small talk. Vila thought Avon was actually allowing him to see another side to him. The first time he had really observed it was when Avon had kissed the Alien who had worn Cally's face—he had exhibited an astonishing passion, a selfless courage, something Vila suspected he had shown to Anna Grant in happier days. And he would always be grateful to Avon for defending him from Tarrant's mockery. Unlike Avon, Tarrant actually _did_ believe he was a fool.  
    Vila's feelings had first stirred for Avon when the two had teleported down to Freedom City, two naughty boys sneaking behind Roj Blake's back with a miniaturized Orac in tow. Avon must have been particularly bored because he had been almost whimsical in his mischief. Though he had been as sarcastic and belligerent as ever, the two had worked well together. And Avon had looked so good in silver, especially after a few drinks.  
    He kept these feelings to himself, believing they were ludicrous. After all, he had found—and lost—Kerrill, who he hoped was in a better, safer universe, even if he was most definitely _not._ Meanwhile, Avon had grown intimate with Cally, who had had a way of getting into everyone's brain even without her Auronar abilities. This quiet scrutiny of hers must have fascinated Avon, who probably craved someone else who paid such attention to minute details, holding discoveries like ransomed secrets. Cally had longed to be a listener again now that she had no one in which to share the intimacy of telepathy, and they had _all_ confided in her. Except perhaps Tarrant, who had always remained distrustful of her alienness. The only one he ever shared with had been Dayna, and even that closeness was waning. (Sometimes it seemed Dayna could barely tolerate him, which Vila found quite understandable.) Cally had craved the need to sift deeper into another, and Avon had needed someone who was not a fool to do so... and he certainly would not tolerate someone who _chose_ to act like one.  
    Vila didn't know any other way of being. He had been like this for so long and it had saved his life so many times—it was just his nature now, playacting becoming truth. Yet this routine complemented Avon's own performance. Sometimes opposites worked in concert with one another, like two jaunty parts of a tune, played in loose harmony, Vila being the improvised melody to Avon's steady, mathematical beat. (Dayna would be much better at musical analogies.)  
    Avon might have possibly loved Cally. What was left behind, Vila could only imagine, was a Cally-shaped hole in Avon's head and what there was of a heart. Compounded with the loss of Blake and the betrayal of Anna, Avon was probably nothing but walking scar tissue.  
     _Cally,_ Vila promised, _I will try to take your place._ It wouldn't be easy: he would have to be sneaky about it. He needed to just be there by Avon's side, offer jokes and retorts, always the clown, always the coward; but most importantly, _watch_ him. "Cally, it's my turn now. I'm not like you but I will try." Survival was everything now—he needed Avon, and Avon needed him.  
     _But Cally, it's so hard,_ he thought.  _I tried to come to you when you called to me—and I failed you. Avon won't forgive me for that. But I won't fail you this time._  
    Only... he just wanted to numb himself first. This would be temporary, he promised her. He needed something to calm him down and Dorian's wine was very good. He just needed to forget for just a couple minutes, that was all. If a crisis came up, Avon would know what to do—he always thinks of something practical. And Vila would be there with him, whatever happened. They were the last of Blake's crew, after all. Just the two of them.  
    Avon may not like it but Vila was all he had left.  
  
***  
  
Avon (Reprise):  
  
     _Slipping in and out of dreams._  
  
    It had been before the carnivorous sand revealed itself to be on the _Scorpio_ itself: Tarrant was down on the surface of Virn, and Vila was drowning himself in alcohol and forbidding Soolin to speak of Cally, whom she had never known—and Cally's ghost was speaking through Orac.  
    Or so it seemed.  
    The sand had worked its way into the ingratiating ship-computer Slave, and then into Orac itself, which had begun spouting what the others heard only as nonsense.  
     _+I love you, +_ said Orac. _+My love for you is deeper than the seas of space. One times one is only possible in the ultra-dimensional.+_  
    Avon had felt a layer of ice enfold him at the words he and Cally had once shared in a dream. The others had all stared at the malfunctioning machine with amused bewilderment and so could not see Avon's body go rigid. "Turn Orac off," he had said evenly.  
    Only seconds of memory crossed his mind then like the lightning the _Scorpio_ was causing in Virn's atmosphere: Anna Grant was handing him a rose as she sat in his lap and purred about the riches they would make. Then he was beneath Blake's body, being caressed by Blake's big, capable hands even as Avon testily gave him directions as to how better to pleasure him. Blake had grinned then and told him how much he sounded like Orac.  
    Avon had not been quite that much of a machine yet.  
    And Cally. Memories of his head on Cally's lap as she stroked his hair, singing "Tidal" in his mind. _My love for you is deeper than the seas of space,_ she had told him in their shared dream.  
    The thunder cracked in the atmosphere over Virn, freeing Avon from this brief, unexpected sentiment. The impaired Orac professed its love once more to him and he finally thundered: _"OFF!"_  
    Soolin was finding it all very funny and Vila smirked, neither understanding the potency of Orac's peculiar declaration. The alien sand causing this malfunction had made Avon acknowledge that _other_ Avon, the ghost-Avon, the one hidden deep within the stone, dead and buried in the rubble on Terminal with Cally.  
    He was something new now. He was finally Avon the Machine, as drunken Vila had so rightly pronounced. _One times one was only possible in the ultra-dimensional._  
    To defeat the sand which had infiltrated the _Scorpio_ and trapped it in chaotic orbit, he needed to kill it with water. He needed to cause a rainstorm on Virn—and oh yes, the rain he would cause would bring down a deluge from the heavens, retribution on the planet that had made him _remember._ If he could, he would bring down an entire sea upon it, a sea as black as space.  
  
***  
  
Rushing toward a planet that should not exist:  
  
     _A woman's gained a shadow._  
  
    The woman in the Federation uniform felt the loss of... a friend. Shock waves reverberated across space itself and she grabbed hold of her ship's console. A distress call from ... where was this place? Something called Terminal. She felt ... her _friend..._ floating in pieces above a distant, strange world that should not be there. She set a course. Was this how it would end?  
    "Zen," she gasped and felt the unexpected tears rush down her face. When was the last time she had cried? Only as a child. "Zen, what has happened?"  
  
***  
  
The Moon Disc:  
      
     _And it will light the way._  
  
    On Terminal, in darkness and debris, it became aware of itself again.  
    When it realized it still existed, it sensed that its companion was in danger and it began to use all of its power to protect her. It telepathically sought help from her other companions, but they had all left her behind, believing she was dead, and the one she had last called for _(*BLAKE!*)_ was too, too far away.  
    They were marooned. It felt bereft for its Cally-friend, frustrated.  
    But wait. There was another close by, one of her destroyed vessel's crew she had not seen for a long time. One who had been thought lost, one who had also shared her intimate telepathy. This _friend_ had come in response to the ship's destruction and found the broken pieces of it in orbit. This _friend_ had somehow been linked telepathically with the ship in some way, and had felt its disintegration from across space.  
    The Moon Disc reached out, sending a mental distress signal across this shorter distance in space to this other creature, this _friend,_ hoping it would not be too late. It would do all it could to protect its vulnerable companion in the meantime, even using up the last of its considerable abilities to do so.  
    It owed everything it was to the Cally-being, its own empathic friend.  
    It called to her:  
        _Open your eyes, Cally, friend, friend._  
     _I am leaving you now._  
  
***  
      
    On a Federation pursuit ship hurtling away from Terminal, Cally finally opened her eyes, astonished that she could.  
    She breathed in, breathed out. 


	17. The Moon Disc (Reprise)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All roads lead to Gauda Prime.

    She was dead.  
     _(Was she dead?)_  
    There was the low hum of engines and beyond that, a sort of muffled noise like wind through a tunnel. Her eyes fluttered open to take in a sterile interior. Her nostrils became accustomed to a slightly musty, metallic odor with a closer fragrance of... was that _jasmine?_  
    Her hand was grasping something hard and oval. She let her fingers open like a flower and the little lifeless disc dropped from them and bounced to the rubber-carpeted floor, settling with a gentle clatter beneath a small table.  
    "No..." Her voice was a hoarse rasp. It grated at her throat to use it. "No, no, _no."_  
    She thought she might be too weak to move, yet she bent over and tried to grab for the dead Moon Disc, trying to pull it once more back to her protection.  
    *Not again. Don't leave me alone. You were all I had.*  
    She was crawling on the floor for it now, extending stiff and pleading fingers toward it. That was when a shadow suddenly fell over her from behind—and looking over her shoulder, she first saw the black oily sheen of a Federation uniform, and over that the featureless ebony mask.  
    Cally made a growl as she rolled over, trying to propel herself upward to defend herself—but her limbs did not function and instead became a spidery jumble as she fell over into a heap on the floor. And so she was astonished when the trooper then gently lifted her back up into the cot in which she had been lying.  
    Correctly guessing her next intentions, the Federation woman—it was a woman trooper, Cally saw—grasped both her arms and held her down with her knee so Cally could not swing a fist or kick at her.  
     _"Don't touch me!"_ Cally screamed and then sent this as a telepathic shout into her enemy's head.  
    "OW! Cally, for god's sake!" yelped the trooper, staggering back. The woman reached up and removed her helmet.  
    Cally froze, gasping.  
    The revealed face belonged to a friend—a former crewmate, a fellow rebel, a confidante who had even been a brief lover for a few inquisitive nights. She now had a shorn crop of golden hair, the stark length of Servalan's. Her eyes looked at once tired and alarmed, but they were the most beautiful pair of eyes Cally had never expected to ever see again.  
    "Jenna!"  
    The woman in the Federation trooper uniform grinned in relief. Jenna Stannis, _Liberator_ crewmate, smuggler, former blockade runner, best pilot in any galaxy—but Federation trooper? Cally squinted with disbelief at her as Jenna knelt beside the bed, the vinyl uniform she was wearing creaking at the knees. Jenna threw off one of her black gloves, tossed it with irritation to the floor and then gently applied her bare hand to Cally's shoulder in an investigative caress.  
    Judging that Cally was unharmed by her own forcefulness, Jenna sighed in relief and offered her former crewmate a crooked smile. "Cally, thank the gods. I didn't know you were awake. Sorry for the scare—I was on the visual comm and I didn't want them to see my face." She indicated the discarded Federation helmet with its blank, soulless visor. "You've been out for two days this time and I had to keep giving you water so you wouldn't dehydrate. You _did_ wake up a few times before that—don't you remember? You asked to speak to Blake."  
     _Blake. Find him._  
    "No," Cally said. "I don't remember anything. Except..."  Her eyes fell to where the lifeless Moon Disc lay on the floor. Jenna followed her gaze, frowning, and went to retrieve it for her. With gentleness, she placed it back into Cally's hand.  
    Cally clasped it to her chest, trying in desperation to feel any warmth at all, or the faintest vibrating thrum of the enthusiastic life it had once possessed. It had been transformed now into a gem-like lump of hardened amber. Still, she mentally implored it: *Little friend! Little sister. _Please._ Don't leave me alone.*  
    Cold, still, inanimate, it was only a simple stone now.  
    "Yes," Jenna said, "I couldn't pry that out of your hand. You were holding it when I found you."  
    "Found me," Cally repeated, blinking at her, almost expressionless despite the tears beginning to fall absently down her cheeks. "How? And why... _this?"_ She reached over to tug weakly at the the sleeve of Jenna's black Federation uniform.  
    Jenna gave a gentle laugh. "Oh no! Don't worry, I didn't go and join the Federation."  
    "So you've only stolen a pursuit ship and changed your fashion tastes." Cally brushed away her tears with the sleeve of the drab Federation jumpsuit that she only now realized she was wearing. Jenna must have changed her out of the destroyed clothing she had been wearing on Terminal.  
    Jenna chuckled at Cally's small attempt at humor but saw that her focus remained on the Moon Disc; she continued to stroke it, seeking life that was no longer there. Jenna reached for the hand that held the lifeless creature.  
    "May I... touch it also? I was always curious as to what it felt like. It was the source of Shadow, after all."  
    "By no fault of her— _their_ —own," Cally scowled, thinking of the illicit drug that had been made from the Moon Disc colony's bodies. Good, there was a surge of anger in her now and she welcomed this emotional shift from grief. She pulled Jenna's hand down atop the amber disc, but the warmth of both their touches still could not restore life to a stone. Jenna's hand lingered there in Cally's for a moment more; then she withdrew, almost regretfully. Cally was briefly reminded of Avon's hand atop the Moon Disc so long ago (it seemed like years now, decades, infinity), and and how the little creature had been intrigued with him, how it had  purred and reached empathically into him, which had startled him and amused her. Would the Moon Disc have responded as favorably to Jenna's touch as well?  
    *You saved me. You gave your life to save me,* she mentally sobbed to the little oval corpse.  
    Jenna ran a hand through her own short hair, a frustrated gesture. Cally had remembered Jenna's hair having always been ostentatiously long and lush, Jenna's pride—now it was shorn off close to the scalp, blunt and haphazard. Jenna saw Cally grimacing at it and said, "Oh, it'll grow back. As you can see, I'm deep undercover. When people think of Jenna Stannis they seem to remember a lot of blonde hair. So it had to go." She grinned wickedly. "And you were correct: I stole this old Starburst-class pursuit ship and retrofitted it to suit me. I gave it deep space capabilities. Then I bought myself a new identity as a mercenary Federation soldier. I go by the name 'Fenix' now—short for 'Fenix-From-the-Ashes', which is how the resistance knows me. Probably what I'll name my ship, if I ever get a decent one of my own and not this Fed rustbucket. And _this—"_ She gestured to the trooper uniform "—gets me in really close to them, a she-wolf in enemy wolf clothing." She grinned, her enthusiasm contagious. Cally felt a sad smile reluctantly tug at her dry lips.  
    Jenna saw this effort and gave her a thermos. "Here, _drink."_ Cally did, gratefully. It was cold tea, overbrewed, but sweet and nourishing.  
    Jenna sat down beside her on the bed, taking Cally's other hand in both of hers, rubbing warmth into the other woman's stiff, cold fingers. "The Federation thinks I blew myself up in blockade run over Gauda Prime. Jenna Stannis as the Federation knows me is dead. At least that's the story Blake's been telling."  
    Cally's eyes widened. "Blake. _Blake!"_  
     _Blake. Find him._  
    She clenched at Jenna's hands, startling the other woman with her sudden ferocity. "Blake is alive? It's true?"  
    "Well, yes." Jenna was surprised by her franticness. "Hidden away on Gauda Prime. He's working undercover as well, but as a bounty hunter." Again, her lips twitched in a smirk. "He's a little too good at it, and it's somewhat frightening."  
    "We... we thought he was dead. Servalan told us he was dead. But I... suspected... _found..."_  
    Jenna scowled. "Let's get you somewhere more comfortable and then you can tell me exactly what happened. And I'll tell you what I've learned."  
    Cally rubbed wearily at her eyes. "The others—where are the others? Were they on Terminal? Did they find a way off?" She was starting to feel dizzy again with all these new revelations, by most of all by her own miraculous resurrection. Her fingers, however, remained clawed and vise-like on Jenna's shiny black enemy sleeve.      
    Jenna helped Cally to her unsteady feet. "Would you like a shower first? I can stay nearby to make sure you don't collapse."  
    "Yes, that might be helpful."  
    As they walked carefully together, Jenna said: "No, I found no trace of the others on Terminal, but my ship detected signatures from another departing craft. There's a possibility that they were rescued. In fact, I'm pretty certain of it. Blake and Deva have found news of them. And Blake is trying to covertly lure them to Gauda Prime."  
    "What's Gauda Prime?"  
    "Where we're headed right now."  
    Cally was led to the ship's head where there was also a meager shower. Along the way, she saw the source of the earlier jasmine fragrance—several live potted plants sat clustered in the mess area. "To break up the bland Federation ugliness," Jenna explained, shrugging. "And for better air quality. Certainly not Federation regulated, but they liven up the place." She sighed. "And I'm a mercenary, not quite an 'official' soldier. You can say I'm on call when they need me. Not many people have seen my face."  
    "A dangerous disguise," Cally said as she caressed a glossy green leaf.  A small smile softened her drawn face. "Do you talk to them?"  
    Jenna looked confused."The plants, you mean?" When Cally nodded, Jenna snorted. "Actually, yeah, I do. I'm that lonely sometimes. It's good to see another living thing up here in the cold of space." She glanced at Cally then and dropped her eyes as the other woman began to pull off the makeshift jumpsuit in which Jenna had temporarily put her. "Sorry. I tried to clean you up after I got you on the ship. My clothes may be a little big on you."  
    Cally grinned. "Doubtful. I'm taller and bonier than you."  
    "The ship's medical diagnostics showed you were healing on your own at a very rapid rate. Of course, I didn't know why at the time." She indicated the flat amber disc that now rested atop some new folded clothing and a robe. "Hope you don't mind Federation regulation sleepwear. It's that or the extra trooper uniform I have."  
    Cally let the water rush in a warm cascade over her. Despite the utilitarian nature of the shower, she found it suddenly glorious as it began to revive her. And strangely, she thought of Auron then, and her sister Zelda—an unexpected and nostalgic flash of comfort and home. Possibly it was caused by the sensation of being safe and traveling with a lost friend.  
    Over the patter of the shower water, she explained: "The Moon Disc somehow connected me to Blake—which I found miraculous because even Servalan believed he was dead. Avon ended up sacrificing the _Liberator_ for him." She rubbed shampoo out of her soaked curls with a groan.  
     _Where are you now, Avon?_  
    She realized then that she had said this out loud and that Jenna had heard her.  
    "I have my suspicions," Jenna replied. "Apparently, there's been a mass exodus of Federation individuals from a mining planet in your Auron system. There's been a scare about seismic activity, and I have my doubts that the earthquake occurred naturally. I expect it was geological sabotage."  
    Cally was intrigued, hopeful. "And you suspect Avon, of all people, had something to do with it?" she asked.  
    "Well, someone with access to teleportation knowledge. It was the only way to get the explosive charges strategically planted in caverns beneath the mining bases, where they were inaccessible to even underground-terrain vehicles. The bombs set off several small earthquakes which released radioactive gases into the upper atmosphere, making it necessary to evacuate the planet. The mining facilities were all abandoned." She gave a sardonic laugh. "It's how I or Blake would have done it."  
    "What, make a healthy planet uninhabitable?" sniffed Cally above the sound of the shower. "Destroy its life and ecosystems just to make a point?"  
    "Well, only temporarily."  
    Cally still found this reprehensible. "It's not the fault of the planet that the Federation is there." She massaged her wet scalp, trying to also ease her indignation. She would have tried to dissuade Avon from taking this action."Which planet in the Auron system was it?"  
    "Cserveitir."  
    The shower water stopped abruptly. Cally reached out a hand rapidly for a towel which Jenna provided.  
    "You look like you've seen a ghost," Jenna frowned when Cally emerged wide-eyed and dripping water all over the floor.  
    "Cserveitir was special to me," Cally said in astonishment."I... hope that the ecological damage that you think Avon caused was only enough to chase the Federation away and not to ruin the planet." Cally hid her head in the towel and stumbled as Jenna helped her into a bland but very warm military robe. "I had spent a lot of time there with my sister Zelda studying its ecosystems when I was young. And Avon had... Avon had liked some drawings I had done of it."  
    "How oddly sentimental of him," Jenna muttered sarcastically. "Is this the same Avon I knew?"  
    "Oddly enough, there are layers to him," Cally said softly, lowering the towel; the harsh warming air of the narrow ship corridor hit her in the face. She suddenly became very aware of her unusual new predicament: she was _not,_ in fact, _dead._ She had been resurrected by a psychic alien lifeform that resembled a stone. She was aboard an enemy ship piloted by an old friend and one time lover. And Roj Blake was still out there, also _not dead._  
    How much stranger could all of this get?  
    "There was always some unspoken thing between you and Avon," Jenna said. "I could see how your... eccentricities... fascinated each other." The pilot gave her another wry smile. "You're an Auron. And he's just, well... pompous."  
    This made Cally smirk, despite herself. Jenna had once distrusted Cally's alienness as much as Avon had. However, there had never been any love lost between Avon and Jenna, and those two would certainly never become friends upon any eventual reunion.  
    "He did this for you, then," Jenna concluded. "He chased the Federation off of Cserveitir for you."  
    "Perhaps. As a gift, I suppose. Or just for revenge. I'm certain he still thinks I'm dead."  
    "Come up here and sit down," Jenna implored. The seating area she indicated was the cockpit itself, Jenna's preferred place of comfort. Jenna fitted herself into the pilot seat and began immediately checking diagnostic readings. In the opposite pilot seat, Cally, who was still barefoot, pulled her knees up onto her chair to get them off the cold floor. Jenna handed her a pair of thick regulation socks as well a newly heated thermos.  
    "It's just strong, regular tea again. I don't have any of the exotic herbal stuff I remember you loved."  
    "This is fine," Cally assured her. "Any tea at all is fine considering I was without food or water for... how long?"  
    "Unknown," Jenna shrugged. "Which is why you've got to take it slower."  
    "Yes, especially after coming back from the dead and all that."  
    They watched the slow rush of stars; a violet-green meteor skated across the viewscreen. All the while there was the incongruous scent of Jenna's jasmine plants. There was a moment of nostalgic, companionable silence, and then Jenna whispered:  
    "I felt Zen die."  
    Cally turned to her. "I'm sorry. I certainly understand what that kind of psychic death must have felt like."  
    Jenna finally spat out the ordeal. "It like was a jolt of white fire in my brain that suddenly grew into a huge gaping void—like a... like a star going supernova and then imploding. Something was torn out of me and it left a crater. I remember screaming and then I passed out, I suppose, from the shock. And I... understood exactly what had happened and even where it had happened—I could pinpoint it in space even without my instruments. All that mattered after I pulled myself together was that I needed to search for the _Liberator_ —wherever it was, whatever was left of it. I risked my life to find it in this recycled old Starburst. I just know I needed to find what was left of Zen." She fought to keep her voice flat. "I had failed him."  
    She stared into the flowing ocean of space before her viewscreen, the trailing currents of constellations. "I located the space above Terminal and found the debris." Cally saw her squeeze her eyes closed as if she were still seeing the glittering fragments of the majestic ship which she described as stretching to form a slender new ring about Terminal. Jenna, not a telepath, not an Auron, had experienced the sharing of a consciousness with another being—Cally was astounded that a telepathically unskilled human had maintained her sanity after such a devastating psychic loss, and this was a testament to Jenna's mental prowess and strength.  
    Jenna finally opened her eyes and turned to face her. "I sent a message back to Blake that I had finally found what was left of the _Liberator._ And we feared that all of you were dead with it." Jenna sighed. "When I told him, Blake cried."  
    Cally remembered her private moments with Avon in the tunnels when he had wept over the _Liberator._ He had also wept for what he had believed was Blake's death. Had he only known...  
    "But you did say Blake received later reports revealing that Avon and the others had survived. Why didn't he reach out immediately to him?"  
    "Too dangerous," Jenna said grimly. "Blake had decided instead that he needed to go about contacting Avon in a more, shall we say, covert way."  
    Now that she was clean and revived, Cally felt stronger, more alert, ready now to tell Jenna the complex story of the _Liberator's_ destruction. She took a deep swallow again from the thermos, so thirsty she did not mind the taste of the bitter overbrewed tea leaves; she then began to recite the events from the point where both Blake and Jenna had gone missing after the battle for Star One. She described the chaotic incidents leading up to the discovery of Terminal and Avon's seeming madness. Despite not giving details about her relationship with Avon, Jenna was shrewd enough to know Cally was being evasive regarding certain matters.      
     Jenna had always disliked Avon. Cally struggled with just how much blame to place upon him for the death of Zen, for the destruction of their ship, for marooning them on Terminal. Sighing, she finally decided to tell her about Avon's various secrecies which had led to his futile search for Blake, and finally into Servalan's complex mousetrap—which led to the reason they had all believed Roj Blake was dead.  
     Jenna sighed as well. She was taking all this better than Cally had expected. However, Jenna muttered, "Single-minded, arrogant fool."    
    Jenna told her then of what she had found on the desolate world of Terminal, after she had discovered the remnants of the _Liberator._ "I was picking up an odd distress call on my comm, so I landed where I thought it was coming from." This turned out, of course, to be the destroyed compound. "I found no apparent lifeforms at first other than those apelike creatures and some reptilian things. But I was well-armed—it was all nothing that I couldn't handle. I nearly gave up until I decided to investigate further down into the tunnels where I thought the distress calls might have originated. Call it some sort of strange hunch."  
    "Not a hunch. The Moon Disc was guiding you."  
     "Hmm, possibly." Jenna said, thoughtfully."It was finally down in there that I _did_ see the strangest thing."  
    She was rubbing her knuckle on her bottom lip in a very Blake-like way as she recalled finding Cally.  
    "You were just lying there, very pale and peaceful, surrounded by debris that looked as if they had been hoisted away from you in an almost perfect circle. It was almost as if you had been been placed in the center of a some ritual. You were so still I thought you were dead, until I searched for vital signs. They were very faint, but they were _there._ You'd also been injured—there were massive cuts and bruises—but these were showing signs of incredibly rapid healing. Amazingly, you had no broken bones—or, if you did, the Moon Disc must have healed them as well. I can only gather that you had been put into some sort of anesthetized trance. I have no idea how long you had been there in that state, and how long it had taken for the Moon Disc to repair you. I only know that you were holding it in an iron grip. It was almost like it was welded to your hand, like it was an extension of you. I decided not to try to remove it."  
    Numb by this revelation, Cally again rubbed the lifeless, cold stone, thanking it. "Their— _her—_ abilities must have been more than we could have ever imagined. Not only did she amplify my telepathy and my calls for help, she must have telekinetically pushed the rubble off of me as well. Then somehow kept me alive even without food or water, until someone was able to come and rescue me. She must also _called_ you in some way, giving you that 'hunch'. Perhaps Zen had left you with that enhanced ability and she was able to use it."      
    "Yes. Strange. That was the other thing. While on the way here to find the _Liberator,_ I heard Blake's name out of nowhere, in my head. It was your voice, I'm sure of it. But it still felt nothing like having Zen ripped from my mind."  
    Cally told Jenna of the re-emergence of the Darkness and how she—joined with Orac and the Moon Disc—had driven it into oblivion. But this channel the three had opened had been so expansive that it had given her a faraway glimpse of the one person they had all sacrificed so much for: Roj Blake. A scenario of him in an alien wilderness had become a beacon of hope for her and she had needed to tell the others, somehow, in some desperate some way. She told Jenna how she had been pinned and crushed under the debris and had tried to call out to Tarrant and Vila. Tarrant had vanished from her consciousness, knocked out or worse, but she had still felt Vila nearby and had mentally called to him. But, impossibly, she was also still connected with Blake and that mental cry to him had reached all of them, apparently even Jenna, and then into the stars themselves.  
    She had seen his face in her mind, turning to look for her—and then the world had just exploded around her. The last thing she remembered was the weird, dreamlike sensation of Avon nearby and her weak attempt to tell him that she had found Blake, that he was still alive... and at the same time trying to tell Blake—wherever he was—that Avon was still searching for him. Then there was really was _darkness._  
    Until...  
    "I woke up here with you."  
    "Thank your Auron gods," Jenna murmured.      
    "No. Thank _her,"_ Cally said to the Moon Disc.  
    "So... Avon finally admitted to you that he was in love with Blake?"  
    "Yes," Cally sighed. "I think he was the last of us all to know."  
    "Blake's goal has been to bring Avon and and the resistance to Gauda Prime. As I've said, he's well aware that Avon is still out there, wreaking havoc, and that Vila is probably still beside him, whining and getting drunk and still being the wiliest lock-picker in the star system."  
    Cally felt it essential to tell Jenna about weapons genius Dayna, daughter of the infamous rebel Hal Mellanby—as well as Del Tarrant, "an errant ex-Federation officer. A good man, so Avon naturally hates him. Also a superb pilot."  
    Jenna snorted. "Not as good as me. And yes, I am justifiably arrogant about my skills."  
    "What's Gauda Prime and why are we headed there?" Cally asked.  
    She learned that it was where Blake's undercover operations were set up, a former agricultural colony now valued by the Federation for its rich underground resources. (Just like Cserveitir, Cally thought.) Due to the Federation withdrawing its protection, it was overrun by fugitives from other planets, criminals and murderers—and consequently, a blockade and bounty hunters in an attempt to clean it all up.  Roj Blake had taken on the role of one of the "cleaners".  
    "We have a base, led by a man named Deva. He's our hacker. Blake's bounty hunter routine is a front for finding resistance recruits."  
    "But what if the Federation finds him _first?"_  
    "That is a —"  
    Jenna did not get the opportunity to finish her reply because a metallic chirp from the pilot's console indicated an incoming message. Jenna suddenly scowled when she saw the coded identification of the sender.  
    "Oh gods. It's Sleer," Jenna hissed. "I have no time for this. Cally, they mustn't know I have anyone with me."  
    "Who's 'Sleer'?"  
    "We've never actually met."  
    Jenna pulled on her helmet which instantly masked her face. Jenna motioned her to be silent and flicked on the comm.  
    "Fenix." Jenna's voice had become distorted through the mask.  
    "Fenix," repeated a far more mechanically disguised voice. It was impossible to tell whether it was even male or female, only that the individual spoke in a reasonable, falsely pleasant tone. No visual image appeared on-screen to accompany the message, but Cally winced upon hearing it and grew wary.  
    "Commissioner," Jenna said swiftly, as she turned the viewscreen as far from Cally as possible.  
    "I have a very special assignment that I've chosen just for you. There is a ship heading into the orbit of Gauda Prime that I think you might find of particular interest. It's called the _Scorpio_ —and several of its crew have considerable bounties placed on their heads for being enemies of the Federation. They are terrorists, to be precise, and we would prefer they be kept alive for interrogation and... proper sentencing, of course." Sleer sounded delighted at the prospect. "Perhaps you might first inform the 'proper' authorities before a bounty hunter collects the prize or accidentally kills them all."  
    Jenna, as the mercenary officer Fenix, inquired who these terrorists were—but both she and Cally were certain they already knew.  
    "Bringing the _Scorpio_ down should be your first priority. I must reiterate: I prefer its crew to be kept alive at all costs."  
    Cally stifled a gasp, and Jenna had to give her a mild warning kick.  
    "And Fenix..."  
    "Yes, Commissioner?"  
    "You've never fooled me. I know who you are and to whom you report. To be truthful, I myself have little love for the Federation these days and what I am giving you is a chance to bail your associates out of a Federation trap."  
    "I... don't know what you're referring to, Commissioner."  
    "Of course not, Fenix. Or shall I call you... Jenna Stannis?"  
    Jenna said nothing for a beat, then inquired in a level voice, "Who might that be, Commissioner? And if this was all somehow true, why would you want to assist these criminals... _madam?"_  
    So Sleer was a woman, Cally thought. Jenna seemed to know as much about Sleer as she did Jenna.  
     "I am only giving you this warning because of one Del Tarrant, who appears to be on board the _Scorpio._ I have a message for him that I wish you to relay when he is taken into custody."  
    "I understand, Commissioner. And that message being—?"  
    "Tell him: _'The girl next door returns the favor.' "_  
    Jenna tried to keep her voice neutral. "Confirmed." (Jenna's intonation reminded Cally at once of Zen.) So, not only did Sleer know Jenna Stannis was alive and posing as a Federation mercenary, but it sounded as if she may have been been intimately involved with Tarrant in the past.  
    When the call was over, Jenna pulled off her helmet and quickly flicked another switch. "Deva, did you copy all that?"  
    "I did, darling," came a new, slightly raspy male voice. "I'll tell Blake to expect guests. He's out checking for new 'visitors' on one of the plantation sites. It also seems we're expecting Federation officials."  
    "Oh, joy," muttered Jenna. "Well, I'll be down mingling with the troopers in disguise, Deva. I have a guest of my own with me and Blake will most definitely want to greet us."  
    "Oh? You have me very intrigued. Play safe, darling."  
    "I always do, Deva. Over."  
    Cally quirked an eyebrow at Jenna. _" 'Darling...?' "_  
    Jenna cleared her throat. "Later." She turned to Cally. "So, the _Scorpio_ is Avon's new ship, eh? We might be able to intercept it before the blockade tries to blow it out of the sky." Her eyes flamed with purpose. "Sleer knows about us and this may be a trap. So, what else is new? It's just like old times. Are you up for this, Cally?"  
    Cally looked grimly at the accelerating trails of stars ahead of them. "You said you had another trooper uniform. I think I'll be needing it."  
    "Good." Jenna's grin was fierce as she turned to the viewscreen.  "I'm so glad you're here with me again, Cally. We've always made a good team."  
    "Now you tell me about this man named Deva and why you let him call you 'darling'," Cally smirked.  
    "Argh," Jenna sighed. "As if I could make him stop. But he has such thick, lovely red hair..."  
  
***  
  
Blake:  
  
     _A man has found his shadow._  
  
    "I find it difficult to trust," Roj Blake had told Deva. "It's a failing, I admit."  
     _Avon, can that be... you?_  
    The two men looked at one another, not believing the transformation in the other. They realized they were both facing a stranger.  
     _I have always trusted you, from the very beginning._  
    This man before Blake was not the Avon he remembered, not the rational, elegant man in dove-grey, his straight brown fringe at odds with his sardonic, sometimes mischievous brown eyes. This new creature was gaunter, hardened, dressed in black ice. His face was leaner, with severe grooves that bracketed his sculptured lips. He seemed treacherously proficient with the long, nasty rifle he now held; there was no doubt he had taken it from the body of another bounty hunter. The woman Klyn had set off the howling security alarms and Blake had heard her cry out when Avon had shot her with that long, nasty rifle to silence her. He could not see her body which had presumably slumped behind the communications console.  
    Red lights pulsed in time to the alarm's clarion call as each man stared at what the other had become. Blake knew it was the sight of the terrible scar over his eye that was partly the cause for Avon's look of horror. Longing mingled in the other man's eyes as well.  
     _Tell me this is all over now,_ Avon seemed to be pleading to him.  
    "Is it him?" Tarrant asked from across the room. The impetuous, curly-haired youngster that Blake had found in the wreckage of the _Scorpio_ might have been a younger version of himself had his life taken a very different path.  
    "It's him," Vila affirmed.  
     _Vila, thank the gods, you're still the same._ Perhaps there was hope left after all— they could all change and grow bitter but Vila would always be their constant.  
    The way they all gawked at him now in disbelief, Blake felt as if he had become some ghastly supernatural manifestation. Avon remained stone-still, the flashing security lights turning his dark eyes to a dangerous scarlet.  
    "Avon. It's me— _Blake."_  
     _Blake. Find him._  
    "Stand still," commanded Avon.  
    Blake began to feel something slip out of his control then. He felt the words he had wanted to say jumble messily in his brain, causing them to emerge muddled from his mouth. All the while, Avon's tormented scarlet eyes continued to accuse him. Blake could see the man's gaunt new mask begin to slip away to reveal terror beneath.  
    Disbelief. Anguish. Madness.  
    "Have you betrayed us? Have you betrayed... _me?"_  
  
***  
  
_Cally, is that your voice I'm hearing?_  
*Yes, Blake. I'm here.*  
_Am I dead?_  
*Yes, Blake.*  
_How is it possible that I'm speaking to you then? Where the hell am I?_  
*Not hell, at least I don't think so. You're an echo, Blake. Be patient, I will explain...*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter would have been the finale. As usual, it's gotten too long and I'll need to break it up—but it's wrapping up, I promise!


	18. Empathy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An short interlude: Blake remembers.

_What happened, Cally?_  
          _*Avon and I… well, there was Avon and I…*_  
          _Once, on the oceanic planet of Cynra, we had awaited a relentless ocean..._  
  
***  
        _A man, his shadow, and the sea._

                        _We are tidal— you and me._

"I hate the ocean.”  
         Kerr Avon stood with folded arms, staring at his adversary, as a cold wind skated across the grey waves. The shore was lined with towering mushroom-shaped rock formations, towers eroded by the extreme tides of Cynra’s eastern coastline. In fact, this dramatic tide was due to rise again in only a short period of time, so it was imperative that the _Liberator_ crew teleport them up as soon as possible.  
         Unfortunately, they were late.  
         “Bloody typical.”  
         An amused Blake, his other adversary, threw driftwood into the fire he had made with the flash of his _Liberator_ gun. He was seated on one of the smoother and flatter of the shoreline stones. He stretched out his long legs and rubbed his big hands together for warmth over the meager flames. “I hate getting wet,” Avon continued to rasp. “I actually think you wanted us down here on purpose, just so you could take a stroll on the beach.”  
         “You know this was the only way to find the Calipheron discs. It’s not my fault they were hidden in a cave accessible only at low tide.”  
         “Thankfully, I was able to pinpoint their exact location or we would never have found them in the two-hour window before high tide. Alarmingly, that window is closing with rapid speed.” Avon looked up at the top of the mushroom tower nearest them, toward where the sea levels would soon reach. It was a height of fifteen meters.  
         The waterproof locker-case containing said discs was currently resting at Blake’s feet. “But the Calipheron data is all safe and sound.” He patted it companionably. “Success.” He yawned, stretched his arms and rotated his neck muscles to loosen them up.  
         “Until the tide comes in,” Avon reminded him. “You don’t seem particularly concerned about the possibility of us drowning and being swept out to sea.”  
         “Oh, I have faith the ship will be back within range soon to teleport us. Really, this isn’t so bad. It’s like a short camping trip. And I like the sea.”  
         “And I can do without it.”  
         “Can you swim?”  
         “I could if I needed to.”  
          Blake shrugged and waved an emphatic arm at the horizon. “I like the wide-open expanse and freedom of it, the untamable natural power of an ocean.”  
          “Of course you would. We’ll soon see if you continue to enjoy that untamable natural power,” muttered Avon. He began to pace. “Besides the dangers of high tide, there’s too much open space here for me. You can only take cover behind the rock formations.”  
          “Isn’t that enough?”  
          “Rock can be blasted apart.”  
          “You’re always ready for attackers with firearms, even in the most idyllic setting.”  
          “Aren’t you?” Avon scowled.  
           “Of course. But from here, you can see them coming.” Then Blake gave him a wicked grin. “The only attack right now you should worry about would come from _me.”_  
          Avon ground his teeth at the insinuation, then snarled: “And I hardly call this ‘idyllic’. Look at how the ocean has carved up these rocks! Nature’s violence.” He picked up what looked like the shell of long departed nautilus, then threw it into the waves. “What the hell is taking them so long?” He lifted his wrist-comm. _“Liberator.”_ A chirp, then silence. _“Liberator!”_ He made another disgusted noise.  
          Blake laughed and patted the stone surface beside him. “Still ion interference, Avon—you know that. And I’d say the ocean ‘sculpted’ the rocks rather than carved them. More elegant that way. Sit down and relax—we’re perfectly safe.” He squinted up into the grey clouds drifting over the ocean. “Though we may get some rain.”  
          “To reiterate: I _hate_ getting wet.”  
          “Here’s a nice warm fire to sit beside. Or is that too cozy for you?” Blake twitched a mischievous eyebrow.  
          Did Avon blush? “And I told you—that nonsense will _never_ happen again.”  
          Blake shrugged. “You were quite happy with the ‘nonsense’ when we were engaged in it. Don’t lie to me and say you didn’t enjoy yourself.”  
          Avon's scowl deepened. (Was he still blushing?) At last he relented, dropping himself down on the stone seat a good distance from Blake, maintaining a stiff posture with arms folded in defiance across his chest.  
        “Sorry to make you relax against your will,” Blake said. “I’m curious: before you joined us, you never went on camping excursions, did you?”  
        “No. Never. Why would I?” Avon glared at him. “Just how much camping could you have done … in the _domes?”_  
        “Well, I don’t remember much of anything in the domes, really.” Blake’s face turned sober. “I can’t remember much of anything before I was mind-wiped. I just get impressions of things that I think I once did, like camping. I remember open spaces, being outdoors under a real sky—somewhere where there wasn’t a dome.” He looked up into the grey swirl of clouds gathering over the tops of the rock towers. A raindrop hit him directly in the eye and he rubbed at it.  
       He squinted and waggled his fingers near his temple. “I get these ghosts flitting in the dark corners of my brain where I should recall faces… events… ways that I used to feel. Ah.” He gave a sad chuckle and reached for the driftwood stick again to stir the fire. He fell silent as he tried once more to pull those ghosts forward from the recesses of his altered memories, but it gave him pain to do so—more Federation conditioning causing this blockage in his brain. Like Gan, he had his own sort of limiter chip.  
       When he looked up again, he found Avon studying him in that unblinking, disconcerting way of his, as if Blake was a machine in need of taking apart and reprogramming.  
      “That look alarms me, Avon. Whatever you’re thinking: no. Just, _no.”_  
      “Have you ever wanted to have more of your memories retrieved? It’s a procedure we can try again. Perhaps Cally could attempt it this time. Her empathic skills could be put to good use. We could—"  
      “Go fishing in my brain again? That didn’t work so well for everyone the last time around, as I recall. No thanks. My ghosts are better left in the attics and the cellars where they can’t hurt me anymore.”  
       For a moment, Blake thought he saw a flicker of something in Avon’s face, a softening perhaps—but it might have just been a shadow from the fire. Perhaps it was the mention of “hurt” that had caused the flitting emotion that creased the space between Avon’s brows. Blake knew that that small line was an indication of something close to sympathy.  
       “So, you trust Cally now? Finally?”  
       “We have an understanding, of sorts. She has a distinctly inhuman way of approaching problems that I find intriguing,” Avon said, readjusting his rigid posture.  
“I don’t know if she’d take that as a compliment.”  
       “I do not consider it a compliment. I find many idiosyncratic subjects intriguing. And yes, that includes my present company.” He shot Blake another disgusted look.  
       Blake rolled his eyes. “I trust Cally very much. In contrast to you, I find her refreshingly human.”  
       Avon offered Blake a rather unnerving grin. “Again, it’s the empathy.”  
       "You’ve mentioned this before. I don’t really know that much about that side to her Auronar abilities. Empathy?”  
       “She calls it a ‘seventh sense’, if you will—if you regard her telepathy as her sixth. This allows her to feel even hidden emotions, especially in us non-telepathic humans, whose brains she considers still un-evolved. Apparently, we all have signature vibrations that she can identify even from a distance.”  
      “I wasn’t aware of this,” Blake said, fascinated. ”Have you two been having actual _conversations…?”_  He found this notion of Avon and Cally talking to one another much more interesting. This annoyed Avon.  
     “From time to time. She is reluctant, however, to discuss this particular ability, as she feels it makes her more vulnerable because she can experience another’s pain or fear. It has a tendency to cloud her own rationality. Another reason why sentiment, to me, is a hindrance.” He saw that Blake was laughing again, which made him grimace. “How am I amusing you this time?”  
      “Cally must know more about you than anyone else. Like me, she’s probably sensed what you hide.”  
       Avon gave Blake a sharp look. Blake had once successfully permeated Avon’s defenses—and Avon regarded that now as an unforgivable transgression.  
      “You know nothing about me.” He swiveled on the stone seat, turning his back to Blake, and stared at the approaching storm. “And neither does Cally.” He lifted his communicator again. _“Liberator,_ come in, we’re running out of time.”  
       Blake gnawed at his knuckle, considering. The fire continued to dance and crackle in the growling wind. The tide would indeed be coming in soon and he tried not to worry that atmospheric interference would prevent their teleportation to safety.  
       “You’re right,” he sighed.  
       Avon looked over his shoulder at him, cautious. “Am I?”  
       Blake continued: “They _are_ taking too long. And it is getting colder.” Raindrops began to pelt them. “And wetter.”  
       It was Avon who sighed now. He looked at the top of the rock formations again. “Can we climb those, do you think?”  
       “If we need to, I suppose. There isn’t any other place to go. Sit closer to the fire, Avon. We just need to wait this out.” He saw Avon was trying not to show he was shivering.  “I thought it was self-preservation over stubbornness with you. I promise I won’t roll you to the ground and ravish you. _Again.”_ Blake was delighted with Avon’s look of indignation. “Seriously—come get warm. And damn it—I’m getting hungry as well.”  
      “You’re _always_ hungry,” muttered Avon as he sat down stiffly beside Blake.  
      “I have a healthy appetite.” Blake patted his stomach and grinned. “Survival skills. You need to be _more_ hungry. You’re a little too skinny, my friend.”  
      “I’m not your friend.”  
      “As you say.”  
      Side-by-side, they fell into a deceptively companionable silence, their shoulders touching. Both had pulled their collars up against the cold. Blake then put a warming arm around Avon, which he could tell the other man appreciated despite solidifying his defensive posture. The wind was tugging at his own curls and mussing up Avon’s fringe, blowing it to one side, off his brow. “You actually should part it off your forehead like that,” he commented. “I like that better.”  
      “A good reason to keep it just the way I _always_ wear it. Who exactly am I trying to please? You? Hardly.”  
      “Don’t lie to me. You are a vain man, Avon.”  
      They fell into silence once more, with Avon reluctantly relaxing his straightened shoulders a bit. His shivering had lessened under Blake’s arm.  
      Then Blake said gently:  
      “Regarding what I had said earlier: sometimes I wish I knew who I used to be, what exactly I had done to earn such notoriety, such admiration and hatred from almost everyone. I wish I remembered what my favorite food was, or my favorite song, or book, or… I don’t even remember my family. And had I been in love with anyone? Had that even happened? You’d think I would have remembered that. No, I just remember camping. And wide-open spaces.”  
       Avon turned to look at him.  
       Blake sighed. “I don’t know who I am, Avon, and what’s more frightening—I don’t think I miss that person I was.”  
       Avon’s voice was quiet. “Because I am a captive audience at the moment, I’m guessing this is your reason for subjecting me to this soul-searching rhetoric.”  
    “Possibly,” Blake smiled, looking into the fire. “I know you couldn’t care less.”  
      Blake turned and saw that thin line between Avon’s brows. The other man scrutinized him with hooded eyes, then seemed to come to a decision. His fingers lifted lightly, elegantly, to Blake’s face and his finely-shaped lips were feather-light as they touched Blake’s own. The kiss was almost ethereal.  
      Avon then pulled back with a challenging stare.  
      “What was that for?” Blake said softly.  
      “I don’t know who I am either.”  
      This admission was so out-of-character for Avon that Blake had failed to notice that the surf had advanced and put out the fire.  
      “The tide’s starting to come in.” He leapt to his feet while Avon remained seated, calm in contrast. Blake lifted his wrist-comm to his mouth, still disoriented by the touch of Avon’s lips. _“Liberator?_... We’d appreciate you bringing us up now.”  
       Avon gazed down at the bubbling, retreating foam that was preparing for a new and stronger onslaught. It was accelerating.  
       Blake barked: _“Liberator? Liberator!”_ Then he growled. “Well, I can’t say I expected to go out by tsunami.”  
       “Not a tsunami,” muttered Avon quietly, numbly. “Just tidal. Perhaps we should consider climbing those rocks.”  
       The two men backed away from the swirling, incoming water. Blake's breathing became heavier as Avon maintained stillness in the face of the impending ocean. “Cally’s calming meditation exercises might assist right now,” he suggested.  
       “Right.” Blake took this under consideration. He forced long breaths of air. “Breathe in, breathe out. Right.” He experimented for a minute or so until he bellowed again into his wrist-comm:  
       _“LIBERATOR!”_  
       “So much for the appreciation of the untamable power of the ocean.”  
       “Oh, shut up.”  
       The communicator crackled into life.  
       “OI! Here!” came Vila’s distorted voice, breaking up from static. “Done with your fish fry and ready to come aboard?”  
       “Remind me when I’m up there to shove a fish down your throat!” Avon snarled. The tide was now at their knees, inky-black, swirling and ravenous.  
       “Such gratitude.”  
       “We aren’t getting any drier. Bring us up, Vila. NOW!” Blake shouted, holding tightly to the locker-case containing the Calipheron data-discs.  
        Avon shared a look with Blake as their atoms were scattered and re-formed into the warm teleport room of the _Liberator._ Once there, each man dropped his eyes, refusing to share even one more glance with the other as they went their separate ways.  
       “Well, what happened down there, I wonder?” Blake heard Vila ask Jenna as he walked away to clean up in his cabin. There had not even been a parting word between he and Avon.  
       “Just be thankful Avon didn’t bring the fish up as promised,” Jenna said.  
  
       After he had showered, Blake looked at himself in the mirror. He touched his lips lightly, wonderingly. He smiled.  
  
***

        _Avon killed me, didn’t he, Cally?_  
        *Yes, Blake.*

***

Gauda Prime:

        Blake.    
        Oh, Blake.  
        Why didn’t you stand still?  
        There was a figure standing close beside him right now. This other man looked just like him except that he was dressed in neutral grey leather and he had an almost innocent fringe shadowing his horrified brown eyes. He could feel this doppelganger’s hatred for him. Transformed finally into a statue, devoid of humanity, he tried to convince himself that he did not care what this past version of himself now thought of this new version of Kerr Avon, the one dressed in black and covered in Roj Blake’s blood.  
_Blake. Find him._  
        This ghost of who he had been hissed in his ear: _“What have you done?”_  
        Well, now. He had found Blake.  
        Here he was.  
        _Was._  
        _…crumbling, dissolving into sand, being pulled away by the tide…_  
        As a statue, only the black tide could erode him now. The sea was turning ebony, the waves forming into a huge hand reaching out from the water, fingers splaying and breaking apart into separate forms, human-shaped, faceless and black-uniformed.  
       The sea had gone black and now it had come to claim him at last.  
       “Avon!”  
       (Was that Tarrant? Why was Tarrant calling him? What did it matter?)  
       There was a pulsing siren sound, and the sky flashed red lightning in a tempestuous sky. Blake stared back up at him, a cruel slash across one of his amber eyes. And yet, somehow, he heard his name being called from somewhere else—inside his own head.   
       _*Avon!*_  
       In all those dreams of the black sea, she had been there, trying to reach him, to pull him away and out of his nightmare. He was hearing her now.  
       _*Avon! It’s me, Cally! YES! I’m here!*_  
        He was truly mad now. He was hearing ghosts. _I can’t move, Cally. I’ve been turned to stone._ He could not look away from the anguished, dead eyes of the man he had loved who now lay at his feet. He still held onto the gun that had killed him.  
        Blake, why didn’t you stand still?  
        _Avon, I was waiting for you!_  
        Flesh was returning. He found he could lift his chin. He became aware of the Federation troopers circling him like a black tide.  
        He felt... something. An odd sensation. A presence, a tug at his perception. _Empathy._  
        Her. She was here.  
        _*Avon, may I come in?*_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to contrast Avon and Blake as they had been pre-Star One (according to this version of them) to what they had become by the time they reached Gauda Prime. 
> 
> I had previously planned for this to be the last chapter, but... there were too many things to sort out and I thought of other things I could do with the story. Once more, if you've read this far, thank you. It's not over yet.


	19. Tsunami

_Well, I bungled that one up, didn’t I?_  
           *Don’t be too hard on yourself, Blake. I hardly think you were the one at fault back on Gauda Prime.*  
            _I seem to understand that we are no longer on Gauda Prime now. You keep mentioning it in past tense. Cally, where are you now? Where the hell am I now?_  
           *I am on a planet in the Auronar system called Cserveitir. From here, I can see Avon walking alone, along the shore of the Rose Sea. You... you are with me, but not as you were. I need to explain more carefully that you're…not entirely corporeal anymore. You no longer have your body.*  
            _My body? Then what am I, Cally? This is almost like a dream—I can hear you, sense your presence. I know you're with me and that you’re close by but I just don't know why I’m not seeing you with my eyes. And yet… I have images in my mind, very vivid. I think I can actually “see” this Rose Sea you’re talking about. I can even feel Avon as well, but he's far away. He is... he's... I feel his thoughts. How can that be?_  
           *Not as far away as he's once been, but yes, he's here on this planet, too. With us.*  
           _And the others? Vila? Jenna? Where are they? Are they here too?_  
           *Calmly, Blake, calmly. I will explain.*  
           _Cally—I am growing very cross. Am I a ghost, for god’s sake? Tell me what's happening!_

   It had happened so fast, so catastrophically.  
          *Jenna, what’s happening? They’re shooting!*  
          Jenna only growled something unintelligible in response behind her trooper mask.  
          Blended into the river of black uniforms, the two women pushed forward, trying to find the sudden source of the artillery fire. Jenna had gotten word that there was an undercover Federation officer in Blake’s company, though no one had any idea as to the identity of the mole. It was Jenna’s aim to take out this individual.  
          The actual troopers were not aware of the disguised traitors in their midst. They streamed into the tracking gallery, guns pulled. Of course, Cally had the advantage of the pair, telepathically communicating anything she perceived to Jenna, who was limited only to grunts and coded hand gestures.  
          The first thing they saw were the bodies.  
          Cally gave a psychic cry when she recognized the unmistakable form of Vila, curled on his side and still. She looked around as quickly as she could, gathering all the details, forcing them to memory. Nearby was Dayna, a graceful brown hand still clutching her abdomen.

           _Vast to the horizon, moonlight washes over your shore. Nothing is what it seems._  


           It _was_ what it seemed.  
           No, no. _NO._  
           Tarrant was sprawled near the stairs, a jumble of long limbs. There were others she did not know—a woman with long silvery blonde hair wearing a headband, a dropped gun beside her; a small brown-haired woman, also a gun near her clawed fingers; a ginger-haired man slumped against an alcove wall. This had to be—  
           “Deva.” Luckily, she was the only one who heard the hiss of anguish from Jenna. She felt her friend stiffen in helpless rage before she made a fierce recovery. Neither of them could break formation to check the vital signs of the fallen, to see if there was anything, _anything_ that could be done. Upon quick scrutiny, she saw no visible blood on her friends—perhaps there was a chance they had only been stunned, kept alive as per Sleer’s wishes. But this seemed too much to hope for when she drew further into the room. She tried not to look at them. She was swept up with the other troopers as they whirlpooled around what was at the center of it all this.  
          When she was finally able to look into the eye of the storm, it became much worse. And here, this time, there was indeed blood— _much_ blood. A ring of troopers had converged around the source of all of that spilled blood, but they were not the ones responsible for it.  
          She felt the sudden horrific shattering of all hope. Being circled by the troopers, a man in black stood in their midst, his back to her, a gun at his side—he stood as still as a statue, fixated by the face of the dead man at his feet. Cally’s mental vision blurred as she knew she had seen this scene before: in a dream, on the shoreline of a black sea—only now it was the obsidian wave of the Federation surging forth to surround its prey. She had at first not recognized the man in the center of the vortex, so altered was he from her last glimpse of him, when he had stridden away from her on the planet Terminal.  
          She did not know this version of him: this stranger was icy pale, in black studded armor, his hair coiffed away from the hollows of his deadened eyes. Deep grooves emphasized those familiar lips. Kerr Avon was standing over the murdered, broken body of—  
          _No. No. NO._ This could not have happened.  
          "Blake." This was a small cry from Jenna, which she had failed to subdue.  
          Blake, their leader, the source of all their hopes. Their friend. Avon's friend and something quite more.  
          _A man's lost his shadow—he will want it back._  
          *What has happened here, Jenna?* Cally demanded uselessly into the other woman's mind, but there was only the barest shake of her black visor in response.  
          From their positions in the back, she could not see Avon’s face clearly enough to read him. She focused on his psychic essence, tried to pull him toward her, reach into his mind for _something,_ anything lucid and familiar—but she was getting too much coarse interference from the black-uniformed humans. They were like a barricade of adrenaline through which she had to push. She started to separate the emotional noise of the troopers from Avon, taking this mob apart like a psychic puzzle. Despite their working like a single, focused mind, she could still pick out individual personalities behind the faceless masks. Some were excited. _(This was the terrorist Roj Blake, apparently dead. Standing over him is his deadliest comrade, Kerr Avon—cornered, captured, defeated, a superb prize. We will be rewarded.)_ Some were pleased. _(Pending promotions, no doubt.)_ Some were even exultant. _(This is a coup, after all)._ But still, some were nervous. _(This is Kerr Avon. We all knew about him. He is an enigma, a wild card. We have no idea what to expect from him.)_  
         Cally had no idea what to expect either.  
         She finally pushed through this maelstrom of emotions to the center. She saw Avon in profile now, his gaze riveted on Blake. He was leaner now, even haggard.  
         _Oh gods of Auron, what happened to you when I was no longer there at your side?_  
         Avon's chest was heaving, his eyes wide, the long dreadful rifle lowered at his side; still and frozen in place, a headstone over a grave. He was covered in blood. (Blake's blood.) The emergency klaxon droned as the pulsing red light matched each of his anguished breaths—like the heartbeat of Terminal, Cally remembered. Horror and resignation competed within him, desperation and recrimination— _guilt._ He did not even seem to know that the black tide of troopers had come for him.  
         She saw the gun in Avon’s hand, the close-range wound in Blake’s chest.  
         Oh, Avon.  
         Why, Avon? How had it come to this?  
         A mistake. It _had_ to be a mistake. And the enormity of this had held Avon in place so much it had lapidified him. What she must do was coax him back to life. Gently, gently…  
         She called his name. She saw his head lift, numb confusion on his face. His breathing then changed, she saw his chest cease to rise and fall; he began to lapse into a deadly calm. He finally made a slow scrutiny of the sea of black masks, looking for the source of the telepathic summoning.  
         *Avon, may I come in?*  
         Perhaps he thought it was a trick, or worse, an auditory hallucination. He gave no indication that he understood she was truly there; he instead put on a mask of his own as he finally acknowledged the ambush—  
         _—this surging black sea which threatened to drown him._  
         *I'm here. Jenna and I are here. We're in the back. Avon, please!*  
         When he looked back down at Blake again, his face was resolute, as if mentally asking for some permission from the eyes staring back up at him. Blake's face had also become strange to Cally: Jenna had warned her about the scar but Cally had not been prepared for that ugly, ragged, long-healed wound that traversed his eye. A look of surprised anguish seemed frozen on Blake's dead face, and the newer wound in his chest was expansive; he had been blasted open. She and Jenna both looked again at that terrible gun in Avon's clenched hand. She felt Jenna’s fury boil beside her, felt her trembling with the horror of this tableau before her. Cally had no doubt that there were tears flowing behind her friend's black mask.  
         Cally, however, felt an odd, clinical calm. She proceeded into Avon’s mind.  
         *Why, Avon?*  
         Cally felt a twinge of acknowledgement then. She knew that it was this gentle mental inquiry that finally convinced him that she was there, somehow, miraculously _there_ amongst his enemies. She felt delicate psychic tendrils of acceptance, recognition, and—slight irritation. _Please don't talk in my head,_ he had once told her, so, so long ago.  
         She continued to talk in his head, relentless. *Avon, I'm still here. Yes, I'm still here.*  
         Of course he could not reply to her. He gazed back at Blake's face with such new, resigned sorrow, that it was very clear that she _had_ been right: it had been a mistake. A horrible, emotional snap decision, something Avon would never have made an infinity ago, would berate any others for. This had been based on sentiment, his nemesis.  
         Even Jenna could see this now, surely. Still, Blake was lying there dead, and his killer was Avon. He seemed to consider for one strange and gentle moment—and then he swung his body in a protective stance over the fallen rebel leader.  
         The blaring emergency klaxon then ceased, as if it too was silently waiting for what was to come next.  
         Straddling Blake, slowly, _slowly,_ he lifted the gun.  
         Cally now saw what would transpire. She sent a mental scream: _*No, Avon!_ Do not provoke them! We are here—we will _help_ you!* She motioned to Jenna and the women both raised fists into the air to alert him as to where they were standing in the sea of black uniforms.  
         A smile crept across his face. What was suddenly so funny? The gun was raised high and his teeth flashed, and then Cally suddenly realized that it wasn't an ironic grin at all on his amused face.  
         He had a plan.  
         Well, of course he had a plan. Why not?  
         Nothing was impossible—she knew this more than ever. And Avon would test it.  
         He pointed the gun into the air, blasted a sudden hole into the ductwork. It was so startling that all the black visors looked upward instinctively. As an inverted geyser of steam exploded out over the assemblage, Avon dropped down onto his knees and spun in an almost balletic movement, sprawling himself over Blake's body in the process. It was magnificent and horrible to observe the speed in which he shot out the legs of his would-be attackers, grinding them all down in half.  
         In her own mind, Cally had suddenly returned to Saurian Major: she was again the resistance fighter firing from behind rock outcroppings, skillfully avoiding snipers and deftly felling her enemies. _*I will make companions for our deaths.*_ She remembered her own rage, her anguish over the lost rebels of her doomed outpost; she remembered being alone—she had been the last rebel left.  
         She would not let this happen again. _For Blake._  
         _*Down, Jenna!*_  
          She and Jenna took their cues from Avon, dropping facedown so as not to be caught in the crossfire, and both fired into the trooper sea. Black-suited bodies toppled; some of them turned when they realized they were being fired upon from within their ranks—but the barrage continued until nearly all the black sea was still. The only noises left were the hisses of steam from the airducts and the mechanical clicks and whirrs from the surrounding consoles that had not been blasted apart by Avon’s cruel rifle.  
          Jenna and Cally had failed to set their guns to "stun" as had been instructed by the Federation team leader. It had been the squad’s orders from Commissioner Sleer to keep the prisoners alive—even if it meant stunning them into submission. But had these commands actually been followed by the troopers? They would soon inspect.  
          Within minutes, only two troopers were left kneeling in the back, brandishing their guns as the steam shower began to dissipate. Avon was bent over Blake’s body, still brandishing his gun as he dispassionately surveyed the carnage. To prevent Avon from opening fire again, Jenna and Cally quickly divested themselves of the Federation masks that had hidden their identities, Cally flinging off her helmet in order to free her mane of shaggy brown curls. She turned and fixed Avon with wide, pleading eyes.  
          He looked up at her and she saw the small line form between his brows. He did not speak a word.  
          The women rose up now and staggered over the subdued tide of black uniforms to more closely inspect the epicenter of all this destruction.  
          Avon had protected Blake’s body even as he had fired on the troopers. The gun now falling slack in his hands again, he turned his head slowly, assessing his work and the damage done. With calm assessment, he registered that Cally was standing over him. He still did not speak, and she did not try to speak either, verbally or telepathically. Their eyes remained fixed on each other in a dark scrutiny that was also full of strange wonderment. His eyes were unblinking, deceptively emotionless—she sensed that he was trying to shut down again, trying to find that old, familiar barrier to put up against her.  
           But it fell apart when he remembered Blake.  
           He rolled over onto his side, leaning on his elbow to hover over his dead friend. A tentative hand touched the terrible scar. Mystified, frowning, he began to trace it with gentle, probing fingers.  
           "Avon."  
           Cally said this aloud and it sounded deafening in a room silent but for the chirps and inane bleeps of the surrounding computer monitors. She continued to stand there, cautious, too close to an animal which might still lash out at her. Jenna remained a short distance behind her, and Cally could still feel her contained rage. Jenna's vengeful wrath was not needed right now, not while Avon was on a possible hair-trigger. This situation was becoming too volatile.  
           "You'd best go check on Deva and the others," Cally said in a low warning voice to her. "See if there's anything we can do."  
           This suggestion was understood and heeded. Jenna seemed to remember then that there were wounded (or dead) comrades and she tore herself away, rushing first to the ginger-haired man slumped against the steps of an alcove. Cally saw her checking his throat and wrist for pulses; then she rubbed her black Federation sleeve roughly over her eyes. Cally was grateful for Jenna’s smile of relief—she too was desperate to check on her friends and this gave her some hope.  
          Avon was not paying attention to her now, mesmerized by Blake. His head was cocked to the side, his brow creased. He passed his hand over Blake’s face and closed his eyes.  
          When he finally looked back up at her, his gun was ready and lifted, pointed at her.  
          Cally staggered back with a cry. "Avon! _No!"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where I take everything past the episode "Blake" and beyond Gauda Prime.


	20. The Exodus

Cally.  
     She stood there impossibly. Just like…  
     _Hello, Anna._  
     _"Avon, why didn’t you come back for me?"_  
     _I didn’t come back because you were dead._  
     … Cally...  
     _"As you can see, I’m not."_  
     As I can see.

     “Avon! It _is_ me—Cally!” She put her gun down, showing desperate, empty hands. She then looked down at her Federation uniform. “No! I haven’t joined them. This is a disguise—Jenna and I had to infiltrate the troop.” She stepped closer, wary of the gun that had killed Blake and was now leveled at her.

     _"Have I changed so much…?"_  
     _"Avon, I was waiting for YOU!"_  
     “Avon. I’m here. It’s me.”  
     _Stand still!_

     He held up a warning hand to her then, his gun still raised, his unblinking glare turning her into a statue of ice. There were erratic emotions like sparking electrical currents in those quietly unstable eyes of his—and for the very first time, she was terrified of this man who was (once) her friend. Oh, what has happened to you, Avon? How did you come to be… _this?_  
     She silently awaited the executioner’s judgement.  
     Pragmatic Avon, is there enough of you left in there to trust me? The waterfall and the Rose Sea. The second moon that calms the tides, all the seas of space.  
     _*One times one is only possible in the ultra-dimensional.*_  
     These images she sent into his mind, and it made his eyes widen—but the gun did not waver.  
     And yet—  
     He cocked his head in an almost inquisitive way.  
     “Avon?”  
     With what seemed like irritation, he waved his fingers at her. It was a very subtle gesture and she stood there confused for a moment. Finally, she understood that he was motioning for her to step aside—and she did so.  
     There was a scuffling noise behind her and before she could even react to it, Avon had fired his gun.

     The blast seared past her. Aghast, she turned and looked around. The trooper who had been struggling to his feet with a gun aimed at Cally was now a crumpled mess on the ground. Blood bubbled from a gaping wound in his chest, similar to the one in Blake's body—the body Avon even now continued to protect.  
     Cally gasped and sagged a bit. She managed to whisper, "Thank you."  
     Avon's gaze now slid past her once more and she feared another attack from behind—but was startled by perhaps the most wonderfully annoying voice in the universe.  
     "Sorry, sorry. I was late seeing him. I should have tripped him."  
     Another figure had risen from the dead. Shaking and brushing himself off, Vila Restal straightened as much as possible for his short frame. He had always maintained a hunched posture that had led people to believe he was smaller than he actually was, a self-defensive tactic to make himself appear less threatening. Now Cally saw him at his full stature for the first time and realized that he and Avon were nearly of a height.  
     Vila opened his hands wide, his voice catching. “I was faking it.” Proud, he gestured at himself. “Look! I wasn’t even stunned. I was biding my time.”  
     He walked up to Cally, looked her up and down with large brown eyes growing wet. "Cally, is it really you? Not a... not one of your clone relations? A sister we didn’t know about? An alien wearing your body? I heard you _die_ on Terminal—you called me. I heard... and Avon said—oh god, Cally—"  
     "Avon was right. I _was_ dead." She turned and looked down at Avon, who remained kneeling, impassive, wordless. She wondered if he would ever speak again. "But it's _me,_ Vila. I had the Moon Disc with me on Terminal and it somehow... _healed_ me. It died doing so." The Moon Disc was with her even now, a stone-like talisman in the pocket of her borrowed Federation uniform. She did not think she could ever part with it. "Jenna—" She turned to the other woman who had appeared beside her with astonished eyes when she had heard Vila’s voice. "—Jenna heard the Moon Disc and my combined psychic distress calls. She rescued me."  
     She saw Avon bow his head then at this, his shoulders sagging with a sigh of self-contempt. She felt stabs of compunction and failure drift from him. He had not been the one to rescue Cally. And yet he _should_ have known of— _felt_ — her continued existence. Instead, he had abandoned her for dead.  
     Torn from Avon's self-recrimination, she found herself absorbed into Vila's grateful, ecstatic arms and she felt his tears brush against her cheek. Jenna too walked over and enclosed them both in a wide embrace. Blake’s original crew was reunited.  
     Jenna’s relief also had much to do with her beloved Deva having survived, though he remained slumped in the alcove, stunned into unconsciousness from a plasma hit. Jenna’s face was split by a rare grin—but this twisted into an abrupt scowl which she directed at Vila.  
     Nervous, Vila pulled back a safe distance from her.  
     "Vila, you weren't shot at all. You were just lying there, pretending to be dead!”  
     "Jenna, I had to fake it," he protested. "I wasn't even hit by a stun. I was just biding my time, as I said, and I would have jumped in sooner. I was just waiting for… waiting for… I don’t know what I was waiting for.” He looked at Avon, who had risen slowly to his feet, as solemnly and silently as an apparition. Vila switched tactics now; Cally saw his slumped posture return and he began his familiar appeasing little hop. "Jenna, I am _so_ glad to see you. And ooh, you cut your hair! I think I like it. It's…well, different? Mostly gone?"  
     Jenna rolled her eyes and pushed past him. "Typical." She glared now at the stiff pillar that was Avon. However, the dangerous confrontation between them was diverted again by Vila, much to Cally's relief.  
     "And you missed my best move!" Vila proclaimed with self-important enthusiasm. "Over here, on this one—the one who betrayed Blake." He said this with pointed emphasis and another sideways glance at Avon. Cally realized there was some strange, new dynamic between the two men. Beneath Vila’s clownish act, she felt a mixture of hostility, even a sense of betrayal. What exactly had occurred between these two in her absence?  
     In quiet desperation, Cally moved towards the motionless forms of other rebels, looking for more concealed life. However, something made her pause and stare again as Vila indicated the body of the young jump-suited woman sprawled on the floor.  
     A sensation came to her then of an other's subdued anticipation, calculation, vengeance—  
     “Vila.” Cally's voice was quiet and cautious.  
     "The Federation mole, I assume," observed Jenna with disgust, looking down at the young woman. Blake’s betrayer was indeed very young, perhaps only a few years out of adolescence. “So she’s the one I was looking for. Hardly seems worth the trouble.”  
     "Wait,” Vila said, puzzled. “She wasn't holding a gun. I took it after I hit her. Funny that."  
      Jenna frowned and bent down—and this was her mistake.  
      An iron-tight arm fast as a striking snake suddenly looped about Jenna’s throat. Jenna struggled despite the pistol pressed to her temple and the young woman rose, dragging Jenna up with her. “I have already sent a coded message to the Federation. More troops will be here shortly. You will allow me to leave or I will shoot your co-conspirator.”  
     “Hey, hey, there,” Vila said, holding up his hands again. “Arlen, was it? I want to apologize again. I didn’t mean to hit you. I mean, yes, I _did_ mean to hit you, but I said I was sorry. Don’t take offense.”  
     “You idiot. That tactic won't work again. And my gun is no longer set on stun.” She ground the barrel of it into the short hair of Jenna’s scalp. Jenna, despite her best efforts, was still in a choke hold—but this impossibly young Federation officer named Arlen, though small and wiry, was also stronger and deadlier than she appeared. Cally's inane thought at this instant was that she must have been a prodigy.  
     Suddenly, there was a shot from seemingly nowhere.  
     Arlen’s eyes widened. She gasped and stiffened and finally slid down to the floor as Jenna slithered loose of her arm. They all turned to the source of the blast.  
     “My gun isn’t set on stun either,” announced Dayna Mellanby, leaning up on her elbow from her prone position. “That’s for the plasma punch you gave me, little girl. And Vila, you should have _hit_ her harder.” She rolled herself painfully into a sitting position. “Thank you again for the distraction, Vila, as well as the idea of playing dead. I was just biding my time, too.”  
     Dayna the Destroyer had showed no mercy. Cally turned and saw Avon’s thin smile of approval—the first smile of his since he was surrounded by the black sea of troopers—and it was just as frightening. Dayna had been his avid student.  
     “It looks like we were worth more to the Federation alive,” Dayna remarked.  
      Finally, Cally could not help herself. Grinning madly, she bent to help the young woman up; Dayna was wide-eyed with incredulity at Cally’s resurrection. She at first frowned at the Federation disguise but then wrapped strong and graceful arms about her. Dayna breathed: “I can’t believe this is possible. You’re _alive._ You’re _here._ We’re together again in this horrible place.”  
      “I thought you were dead, too,” Vila said to Dayna. “I thought Arlen had killed you.”  
      “I thought so too. But I’m glad she didn’t.” She grunted as she held her abdomen where Arlen had shot her; it would leave a magnificent, florid bruise later. It was a credit to her resiliency that she had recovered from a plasma stun so quickly. “You know how stubborn I am. And I have songs I still want to write.”  
     “Is she dead now?” Vila asked, looking down at Arlen’s wide-open, astonished eyes.  
     “Pretty sure,” Jenna said, giving Arlen a nudge with her boot. “Gods. She’s just a kid. But what a grip.”  
      “I couldn’t take any more chances,” Dayna said grimly.  
      “Thank you," Jenna said. "You must be the Dayna that Cally has told me so much about.” Jenna held out a business-like hand, which Dayna clasped in comradery.  
     “And you must be the best pilot in the galaxy. Well, next to—”  
     Tarrant. They all looked at the sprawled form on the stairs, and now Dayna drew apart from them and stumbled clumsily over the bodies of troopers. She fell down beside her fellow crewmember and Cally saw her stroke Tarrant’s curls. She inquired softly, “Del?”  
     Vila, meanwhile, crouched beside a young woman lying in a pool of her own long blonde hair. His grin confirmed that the woman Cally would come to know as Soolin the Gunslinger was still among the living.  
     And so was Tarrant, judging by Dayna’s relieved smirk. “Alive," she said to the pilot. "Though you shouldn’t be, you idiot. You always jump to the wrong conclusions.”  
     Then, as a group, they all turned now to look at Avon, having not forgotten the darkest shadow in the room.  
     There was a terrible silence for a moment—then Avon spoke so softly, they almost did not hear him.  
     “We all need to get off of Gauda Prime. The Federation reinforcements are on their way as we speak and we need to take… Blake… to a safe place." He did not even glance at Blake’s body as he said this, as if he was already distancing himself from his irreversible act. He then added even more softly: "They will want him.”  
     Jenna stepped forward, her fury finally finding its release. There was no stopping this confrontation now and Cally stepped up beside her, once more ready for violence.  
     “You son of a bitch.” Jenna spat at Avon. Though he closed his eyes, he remained a statue, bearing the impact without further reaction. “You have no power here,” Jenna hissed at him. “Not anymore. And you will not give _me_ or any of us orders.”  
     Vila said in a sad voice, “He thought Blake had betrayed us. We _all_ thought that… for a moment.”  
     “You arrogant bastard,” Jenna snarled at Avon. “Blake would never have betrayed you. He loved you.”  
      There it was, naked words for all to hear. Avon’s eyes widened with the stinging rawness of this truth—but he did not look away from her fury.  
     “He’s right, Jenna,” Cally said firmly. “We need to get on your ship and leave. Now.”  
     Jenna threw up her hands and stalked away from Avon. “The _Fenix_ is too small and I don’t have room for so many.” She heaved an aggravated sigh. “We need a second ship and someone who can fly it through the blockade… “  
     The attention was now on the inert form of Tarrant, who was still being tended by Dayna.  
     Dayna looked up with new determination. “These troops must have their own ships, of course. We can steal one.” She rose and went to pick up her gun from the floor.“I can take care of the others until they’re conscious. If you help me get them into a Federation ship, Tarrant will be our best option as a pilot.” She looked at him with an annoyed sigh. “If the idiot ever wakes up.”  
     “Hey, I’m supposed to be the idiot here. I resent the competition,” remarked Vila.  
     “Then we need a rendezvous point. A place safe from the Federation.”  
     Again, Avon’s voice was unexpected and soft as silk. “Cserveitir,” he said.  
     Astonished, Cally stared at him. What an unexpected, blissful word that was amidst this carnage. The planet of the Rose Sea, the starlit waterfall of her drawings, the place of their shared dreams.  
     “But you irradiated it. Jenna told me—”  
     “But he didn’t, not really!” Vila chimed in triumphantly. “It was a ruse! Orac exaggerated to the Federation system the extent of the damage we did. As far they know, it’s been rendered uninhabitable. But _we_ know better. It’s only got the abandoned mining facilities to live in, but… it’s _safe,_ right?” He looked at Avon for affirmation.  
     “Orac fed the mining site false readings.” Avon’s voice was clinical but subdued, weary. “It was quite simple to fool them. The planet remains the way you remembered it, Cally, but for the Federation mines that we partially destroyed. There is, as Vila says, shelter and sanctuary if we choose to go there.”  
     Cally’s smile was full of gratitude. She met his eyes and his curt nod to her was almost imperceptible. Avon—the Avon she had known—was still in there somewhere, below the surface of that black and frozen sea.  
     Jenna made a derisive noise. “And where _is_ Orac? I know he’s here somewhere because you would have made certain he was safe before the rest of your crew.” Cally found it strangely amusing that Jenna also referred to Orac in the masculine, as well as being one of "the crew."  
     “Yes,” Vila said darkly. "Orac always takes precedence." There was a scorn in his voice that Cally still did not understand.  
     “I’ve hidden it,” Avon replied. Orac was still only an "it" to him, despite its privileged status over the crew. “But may I suggest that we make more haste? We should get… Blake… to your ship first. Then I shall retrieve Orac.” He avoided looking at the body on the floor.  
     “We’ll be all right,” Dayna told Jenna. “You need to get to get off this planet _now._ We’ll follow you when we’re able and space-bound.”  
     “The blockade—”  
     “Not if we’ve stolen a Federation ship. They wouldn’t dare.”  
     “Right.” Jenna rubbed at her mouth with her knuckle in another gesture that reminded Cally eerily of Blake. She knew Avon was observing this mannerism as well.  
     Jenna then implored Dayna: “Deva. He goes with you. He’s one of us.”  
     Dayna looked at the body of the ginger-haired man in the alcove and nodded. “Of course. We’ll take care of him. You have my promise.” She then offered Jenna one of her most beautiful Dayna-smiles, which sealed the mission. “Jenna Stannis, I’ve heard a lot about you.”  
     “And I you, Dayna Mellanby. Your father was a great man.” Jenna’s eyes warmed then for just a moment. Cally saw for the first time the vague lines of age and worry that had begun on her face.  
     There was a low moan then from Soolin, who was trying to sit up. By what must have been instinct, she grabbed for her gun and brandished it at the two helmetless Federation troopers standing in her eyesight.  
     “Soolin! It's all right! They’re friends!” Dayna sprang to her fellow _Scorpio_ crewmate’s side to prevent her from killing anyone else.  
     “What the hell am I doing on the ground?” Soolin protested, sounding outraged. “I feel like someone threw a box of bricks at me.” She inspected herself, incredulous at the lack of blood. “And I ache like hell. How am I even alive?”  
     “Easy, Soolin. You were plasma-stunned. It’ll pass but it _will_ ache like hell. Trust me on that." Dayna rubbed at her own abdomen. "Can you stand yet?” She aimed a snarl in the direction of the prone body on the stairs. “Oh, come on, Tarrant, you big gangly dumbass, _wake up!_ We need a pilot!”  
     “Pilot? What’s happened?" Soolin looked around the room blearily, took in the lifeless bodies in oily black uniforms, all the blood and destruction. “What a mess. Ah, Gauda Prime, you never disappoint.”  
     Jenna finally bent down to Blake’s body. She seemed almost afraid to touch him as she ground her teeth, fighting a surge of unproductive, stupefying emotion. “Vila, Cally, is there a tarp, something, anything, we can wrap him in?”  
     A low raspy voice in the corner of the room said weakly: “Compartment down the corridor… closet…”  
     “Deva!” Jenna cried. “Don’t try to move yet. We’re getting you out of here.”  
     “No. You get _Blake_ out of here. You take him… somewhere safe. What your man there said.” Deva groaned and slumped over again. “Don’t let them have his body.”  
     Cally felt Avon flinch.  
     As she sprinted down the corridor to fetch what was a bound roll of thermal, silver synth-cloth, Cally heard Dayna shout at Jenna, “Soolin and I will take care of Deva and get this other sleeping lug to a ship, even if we have to pilot it ourselves.”  
    Cally paused in the corridor for a split second. Leaning against the plasma-scorched wall, she began to suck in great gulps of air. Such an array of emotions crisscrossed from everyone and everywhere at once, conflicting with her own. And like a monolithic, unclimbable wall before her was the stark, new reality that Blake was dead. Blake was truly, undeniably _dead_ this time.  
     And Avon had killed him.  
     Focus, Cally. Arrange your thoughts. Control your emotions. You are needed.  
     She reached into the pocket near her sidearm and felt for the Moon Disc, cold and smooth. She held it in her tightened fist, reluctant to even now let it go. Finally, she decided to offer her small, symbolic sacrifice.  
     They spread the silver blanket on the bloodied floor. “Help me move him,” Jenna said, her voice brittle as glass. Vila and Cally stepped forward—as did Avon, who had put down his gun at last.  
     “No.” This was a snarl from Jenna. “Not _you._ You will not touch him ever again.”  
     Vila glared up at Avon from under the arches of his furrowed brows, as if he too were waiting for an eruption. Avon, however, had no retort; wordless, numbed as if by an icy splash of seawater to the face, he took a graceful, obedient step backwards. Cally felt no tectonic rage beneath that ice-smooth ocean of his. He had accepted that he was now a pariah.  
     Before they could fold the concealing blanket over Blake’s bulky lifeless form, Cally said, “Wait.”  
     Jenna and Vila looked up at her quizzically as she knelt. From her pocket, she removed the Moon Disc again. She held it with solemn fondness for one last time, running her fingers over its cool dead surface; then she placed it in the palm of Blake’s hand. She curled his equally cool fingers around it; his hands were so large and she did not remember ever having touched them before. Next, she folded both his hands over his bloodied breast. “May you always hear the universe as it hears you. May new stars be born from your memory.” It was one of her people's old, ludicrous funeral prayers. She remembered it from childhood; but she had seen much since she was a child and the universe she would later experience was bewildering, terrible—and magnificent. “Goodbye, my friends.”  
     Cally heard Dayna say in a low, patient voice to Soolin: “Yes, she’s a bit odd. But I told you, she’s Auronar.”  
     She rose and looked from Jenna to Vila. They all gave a collective sigh and then folded the material over the body of Roj Blake, who vanished into his silver cocoon. She turned and saw the unhidden anguish in Avon’s eyes as he stood with hands clasped before him. Cally thought he looked diminished.  
     But he surprised her by speaking.  
     “I shall return shortly. I will bring Orac.”  
      They all watched him stride past them and out into the corridor and out of the compound.  
     “He didn’t take a weapon with him,” Dayna observed.  
     “No,” Cally said, wonderingly. “No, he didn’t.”  
     “I wonder if he’ll come back,” Vila muttered. “He would have Orac, after all. He wouldn’t need any of us.”  
     Cally was still looking at the doorway through which Avon had exited. Her smile remained small and grim. “He _does_ need us. He has nowhere else to go.”

     The _Fenix_ was a short distance from the rebel headquarters, in a clearing of twisted evergreens and mist. The small escape crew of Jenna, Vila and Cally stood before the former Federation pursuit ship, watching the black-clad figure approach through the trees carrying the clear box that contained the most advanced computer in the galaxy.  
     Cally sighed, her relief palpable to them all. “I told you.”  
     But there suddenly seemed a vast gulf between them and the solitary figure of Avon. He seemed to realize this and stopped in his tracks.  
     Abruptly, Jenna ordered, “That’s close enough, Avon. Put Orac on the ground.”  
     Cally then saw that she was aiming her Federation gun at him.  
     “Jenna! _No!”_ cried Cally.  
     Avon stood still, his eyes grown darker with amusement. He cocked his head and gave Jenna a curt smile. “Well now, Jenna Stannis, I cannot say I’m surprised by this.”  
     He put the computer on the ground without protest. He held up his hands to show he was unarmed.  
     “Vila, take Orac. Avon will not be coming with us.”  
     Vila stared in incredulity at Jenna before scuttling over to Orac, wary of any sudden moves from Avon. The other man only stood there with his dangerous smile and his knowing glare that did not waver from Jenna Stannis’ impassive face. Vila scampered back with the computer and, like Cally, stood aghast at this new development.  
     “Jenna—”  
     “Shut up, Cally,” Jenna said softly. “I’m sorry, Avon.”  
     And she shot him.


End file.
